Guy Hands

Guy Hands: ‘I’m scared of ending my life having not achieved’

The private equity investor famous for buying up companies, restructuring them and selling at a vast profit talks to Charlotte Edwardes about high-stakes deal-making and the emotional fallout

Guy Hands: “I have an addictive personality. And I’ve been addicted to work, probably to an unhealthy extent.”

Saturday October 23 2021, 12.01am, The Times

Before we start, let me tell you something rare about Guy Hands, that has nothing to do with the £2.5 billion he lost in 2011, or the £1 billion or so – he won’t give me the precise amount – he has made back since, and everything to do with his hands.

Right now, in his sunny kitchen with its line of windows overlooking the sea, they are lightly laced, banging the air to the rhythm of his speech. But these are not the hands of a 62-year-old financier with a placid cloud of white hair. They are the hands of an infant: no pores, no wrinkles, no hairs. Does he moisturise, I ask, thinking that maybe these are just rich person’s hands. Emphatically, he does not. Then he turns his palms slowly, like a conjurer in a dramatic reveal and… Smooth! His palms are almost completely smooth. They are lined only with the basics: head; life; fate. “It’s very bizarre,” he acknowledges. “I also have virtually no fingerprints.” He holds up the tip of his forefinger. It is blank, but for two vertical lines – II – like a mathematical symbol. They set off detectors in airports, he says. “I have to register electronically, because they can’t ever get my thumbprint.” He would make a great criminal, I suggest. “I think I wasn’t really born is the issue.” …read the full article on the The Saturday Times Magazine