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Profits boost for Aberdeen tycoon’s holding company

Scottish businessman Ian Suttie
Scottish businessman Ian Suttie

The Aberdeen holding company controlled by Scottish tycoon Ian Suttie saw its pre-tax profits increase by a third to £3.2million for the year ending 30 April 2014.

First Tech is made up of eight businesses whose remits range from construction, hotels, whisky, mooring systems, tidal energy, subsea technology and marine engineering.

The group’s turnover rose to £24.6million from £18.5million, while its net spending for the period trebled to £22.7million.

Over the course of the year, Mr Suttie, 67, pumped £17.5million into the company in the form of interest-free loans.

Mr Suttie is one of Scotland’s richest men with an estimated personal cash pot of £450million. He was ranked 77th out of 250 on Estates Gazette’s list of the UK’s wealthiest property holders, which was published in December.

His First Oil venture describes itself as the largest private, UK-owned company producing oil and gas in the North Sea.

His wife, Dorothy, is the other director of First Tech. It is thought to employ about 85 people in Aberdeen.

Mr Suttie was unavailable for comment when contacted yesterday by The Press & Journal.

The firm’s construction arm is behind a plan to transform the Broadford works, the former Richards textiles factory in Aberdeen, into an “urban village” of more than 500 homes, about 50,000sqft of commercial space, a restaurant, nursery and 569 parking spaces.

First Construction was granted conditional approval for the scheme by the Scottish Government in 2013, although the A-listed site has lain derelict for several years, and has been repeatedly targeted by fire-raisers and vandals.

Mr Suttie bought the Richards of Aberdeen textile manufacturer over 12 years ago, but two years later it went out of business, leaving nearly 200 people jobless.

First Tech holds stakes in First Construction, First Marine Solutions, First Subsea, First Whisky, Mooring Systems, Nautricity and its subsidiary, Argyll Tidal. Its other subsidiary, First Inn, which owned the Enigma bar in the Academy Centre, has ceased trading, the accounts said.