He is rich. Filthy rich even. On bad days he loses 12 million pounds, on good days he gains 280 million. And he knows how to live. Lars Seier Christensen drives a Bentley worth a whopping quarter of a million and of course, of course, lives in a castle. In an interview with the “Financial Mail On Sunday”, the Dane not only told how he made it from being poor to multi-millionaire, but also what luxury he can’t give up – good food.
Seier Christensen is a man of good taste in the truest sense of the word. He can be found dining at the restaurant several times a week. But not in any random trattoria around the corner, but in a “good restaurant”. The invoice then shows an amount with many zeros. “I typically spend £1,000 dining out three to four times a week,” he says. So the bottom line is between 3500 and 4700 euros. And the businessman also has a thing for good wine. He doesn’t get booze in his glass. Life is too short for bad wine, according to Seier Christensen, “so I spend anything from 50 pounds upwards on a bottle”.
With so much love for enjoyment, it is not surprising that the businessman also owns several restaurants in Copenhagen. The most well-known is certainly the geranium. The three-star Michelin restaurant has just been voted number one by “The World’s 50 Best Restaurants.” The portfolio also includes the renowned Alchemist, which is decorated with two stars. During the pandemic, the Dane also launched a charity initiative that ensures that 400 meals are distributed to the homeless every day.
Seier Christensen is not born with a golden spoon. He grew up in the Danish countryside, where the family had enough to live on, but not more. He learned to get by. At 19 he emigrated to southern Spain with a friend, opened a bar, partied a lot and earned little. And if they were empty again, then “we could always have a drink in our bar”. He lived this carefree dissolute life for four years – then he threw himself into a new adventure.
It was the Financial Times that brought Christensen to London. “I found it quite exciting to read about commodities and foreign exchange. I decided to jump into this industry,” he says. At 23 he got hired by a broker, completely green behind the ears, with no training. “Trade isn’t something you learn at university anyway. It’s something you learn the hard way by making mistakes,” he says. He was ambitious, learned through practice. And had the right touch. He worked his way up: “I’ve gone from being a poor slob to making £200,000-250,000 a year, which was a lot of money in 1988.”
Seier Christensen’s success curve is one that points upwards. Almost always. And since he sold his shares in Saxo-Bank, which he co-founded, in 2018 at the latest, he no longer has to worry about his pension. He made £280m selling it in just one day. He had once invested 30,000. “It was a good day,” said the Dane. But that wasn’t a reason for euphoria either. “I think you have to be careful not to let the good and bad events in your life throw you off balance,” he says. “I don’t remember if we drank champagne – I probably opened a large bottle of red wine.”
Seier Christensens has made its money with the right investment touch. But instead of drawing the line at some point and having a lazy life with the money he earns, he keeps investing – not in shares but in companies. The risk is always at his side. “I like to keep half my money so I don’t end up with nothing one day. Then I take the other half and invest it in risky things,” he explains. That often goes wrong. He made his biggest financial mistake a few years ago when he invested in a jewelry company. The deal cost him £12million. That, he says, “annoyed him a bit.”
Quelle: Financial Mail on Sunday, seiercapital.com