It is a truth perhaps less universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a good fortune is in want of a think tank.
Dan Macdonald, the founder and majority owner of successful property developer Macdonald Estates, is also the driving force behind the research organisation, N-56.
Mr Macdonald dislikes the term “think tank”, although the group has commissioned a series of hard hitting studies on Scotland’s economic potential in the critical run up to the independence referendum.
Most recently, it stuck its oar into the increasingly heated independence debate with two recent reports on North Sea oil and gas.
Its latest coincided with the bombshell dropped by Sir Ian Wood – in an interview given to the Press & Journal’s sister website, Energy Voice – in which the oil & gas veteran claimed the Scottish Government of massively overestimating North Sea reserves.
But N-56, which had criticised the Office for Budget Responsibility’s “woefully pessimistic” estimates for North Sea tax revenues, welcomed Sir Ian’s intervention.
Even using Sir Ian’s more modest estimate of 15 to 16.5 billion barrels of North Sea oil, N-56’s researchers adjusted up its estimates that tax revenues would be worth £400billion between 2014 and 2040 – an upgrade on its initial forcast which said Scotland would have a budget surplus from 2020 and have more than enough for to start a Norwegian style oil fund.
Mr Macdonald, who originally hails from Dornoch in Sutherland, admits he is decidedly in the “yes” camp.
He describes a recent holiday where he got to know a Norwegian who worked in the oil industry.
When his new holiday companion asked about Scottish independence, Mr Macdonald told him: “I hope we get it.”
But his new Nordic friend warned gravely – “You haven’t a chance.
“He said ‘I hope it happens for you. But there is no way they are going to let the oil go,” recalls Mr Macdonald.
But N-56 is keen to describe itself as apolitical.
Part of the thinking behind the establishment of the group was a desire to answer questions about Scotland’s economic potential – whether Scotland is independent or not, or just further devolved.
It started when, wearing his property developer hat, Mr Macdonald began thinking about some of the implications if Scotland set its own course.
His Edinburgh-based company, which he founded in 1997, has managed well through the recession which saw the vast debt pulled out from under several of his peers in the industry like a moth eaten old rug.
Developing projects for supermarkets, then student accommodation – as well as carrying next to no debt – means the company has kept profits coming in the door, despite write downs and falling rents in recent years.
One day he asked an economist friend to find out how much real estate the UK government has in the South East.
“It was astonishing, it took him ages to find out – 99million square feet,” says Mr Macdonald.
Even taking a fraction of this figure and taking in what already exists in terms of government offices, Mr Macdonald reckons the estate required for the government of an independent Scotland – a DVLA, for example – would be a strong tool of urban regeneration.
“Is it not a great way of stimulating the economy in those areas than need it and show the country can spread the wealth?, he says.
“I’m not calling for the government to be set up in Dornoch, it doesn’t have the infrastructure, but there’s Inverness and Elgin that have the infrastructure”.”