Nick Samuel

Nick Samuel was one of the nicest guys in the fashion world, and highly successful in turning Hobbs from a small family-run affair to a major fashion brand on the high street. He really understood private equity, and made Hobbs’ backers a lot of money (and himself too presumably). He’d been suffering from cancer, which must have set in rapidly as it doesn’t seem that long ago he was out and about on the retail circuit.

He was a thoughtful guy but passionate about fashion retail, although if memory serves me correctly his background was in accountancy or something similar. I remember travelling down on the train to Bristol with him around this time last year where we were both taking part in a conference for Land Securities, and he was fascinating company, talking about the private equity scene, online (he was involved with Adili/Ascension at the time) and also pointing out the house of Monsoon’s elusive founder Peter Simon, which is visible from the train. I then managed to get the two of us hopelessly lost in Bristol on what felt like the hottest day of the year, but he was very good humoured about it, and proceeded to give a very provocative presentation at the conference which really gave the property guys who were there something to think about.

The best thing about Nick was he was one of those people who really lived retail, from running the marathon for the Retail Trust, to being on the board of companies from Karen Millen to Blacks at various times, to being at all the drinks parties and always being up for a gossip over a glass of wine. He was a good friend to both Retail Week and Drapers, and all of us here send our condolences to his family - he’ll be missed.