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Roger Byron-Collins
Roger Byron-Collins Born	19 March 1946 Cardiff Wales Education	King Edwards School Witley Occupation	Chairman, Welbeck Estate Group Known for	Property investment, Aviation Airline Owner Religion	Anglican Spouse(s)	Kaye Margaret Heller (1969-1973, divorce) Sylvi Britt Staal (1974 - Children	Nicholas Alexander Collins               Alexander Byron-Collins Parent(s)	Arthur Collins                Doreen Maud Heslop

Roger Byron-Collins (born 1946) is a British Property Developer and Airline Owner

EARLY LIFE

Byron-Collins was born in Cardiff on 19 March 1946 the son of a Royal Air Force Navigator and a member of the Women's Royal Air Force whilst they were stationed at nearby RAF St Athan. His first home was a warrant officer's quarter at RAF Driffield Yorkshire until 1949 and moved to RAF Waddington Lincoln. In July 1953 he moved to RAF Marham Norfolk until March 1954 when when his father was sent to Australia for Atom bomb trials so returned to Cardiff. After his father returned to the UK, Byron-Collins moved to RAF Waterbeach Cambridge in 1955. He attended Cambridge High School for Boys. In 1957 moved to RAF Watton Norfolk attending Hammonds Grammar School Swaffham. In 1958 he moved to RAF Tangmere Chichester and attended Chichester High School. In 1959 his father moved to RAF Khormaksar Aden South Yemen and Byron-Collins remained in the UK as a boarder at King Edwards School Witley Surrey. In 1962 he secured a place on the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Land Survey Course at the South West Essex College in Walthamstow to study as a chartered surveyor whilst living at RAF Northolt.

CAREER

After leaving college Byron-Collins joined Snell and Co Chartered Surveyors in Maida Vale London as a trainee surveyor. In 1965 he had a short spell with Hetherington Swannell and Secret Rickmansworth and then joined Mullett Booker and Company on the Hyde Park Estate. Within a short period he headed up the Investment team where he met David Rowland of Fordham Investments whom he joined in 1968 in Upper Grosvenor Street Mayfair.

In 1969 he left Fordham to start his own property investment company Macedonian Securities from their Penthouse offices in Capital House Craven Road Paddington. Within just a year it had acquired 320 flats and shops in England and Wales valued for over £10 million. With his eye on the British ex pat housing market he opened at office in the Lefkosia district in Nicosia Cyprus in 1970 market new build villas in Bellapais near Kyrenia. He soon learnt of the attraction of raising funds for his projects in the nearby financial center of Beirut Lebanon where he commuted on a weekly leading to the Bank of the Lebanon and the Middle East underwriting many of his acquisitions.

As a result of his aviation upbringing Byron-Collins also decided to start his own airline. In 1971 Macedonian Aviation was formed to operate passenger and cargo charter flights and started with the purchase of an 11 seat de Havilland Dove G-APZU followed shortly thereafter with the acquisition of the British Aerospace Corporation's Filton based 35 seat Douglas DC3 Dakota G-AMPO. The airline was initially based and Luton and then at Southend airport after Byron-Collins was awarded for Macedonian Aviation their own Air Operator's Certificate AOC. One of the first charters was between the 6th and 12th November 1972 when Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five were flown between their concerts in Paris, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Wembley. The following week the aircraft was chartered by Donny Osmond and The Osmonds for their use in their UK tour. The Dakota G-AMPO's first flight was to rescue a group of 25 British guests from Beirut Lebanon in September 1972 who were caught up in the aftermath of the murder of the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. They were successfully rescued under fire from Beirut airport and G-AMPO was escorted by two Israeli aircraft to Nicosia Cyprus where some of the guests disembarked and the aircraft returned to Southend. The fleet comprised Five Douglas DC3 aircraft registrations G-AMPO, G-AMHJ, G-AMPZ, G-AMRA, G-AMSV and one de Havilland Dove G-APZU. Full commercial charter began operations on November 5 1972 and major customers included the Ford Motor Company carrying car components between their Dagenham and Dusseldorf plants and the Conoco oil company flying as far afield as Bergen, Malta and Libya ferrying off shore workers and supplies. Scheduled services were carried out on behalf of Intra Airways and also BEA between the Shetlands and Aberdeen. By 1975 many of the airline's customers required turbo prop operations and because of the prohibitive cost in conversion Byron-Collins decided to sell his aviation business.

Byron-Collins then concentrated on his property interests. In 1976 this led to Byron-Collins acquiring from Amalgamated Investments the Grand Junction Estate comprising the freehold of 525 houses and mews properties bounded by Sussex Gardens, Praed Street, Edgware Road and Norfolk Place just quarter of a mile from Marble Arch.

In 1977 Byron-Collins relocated to his new offices in London End Beaconsfield Buckinghamshire and formed a new property investment company First State Holdings with his former banker John Eames a director at the recently defunct Cedar Holdings Bank. The new company expanded quickly with the purchase of 845 flats houses and shopping parades many of which were in partnership with Peter Prowting's Estate and General Investments plc In 1980 Byron-Collins opened a US office at 1200 Arlington Ridge Road Virginia USA and quickly set about acquiring blocks of rental apartments for conversion to condominium living. By 1981 he had acquired a block of 300 apartments at Roberts Towers opposite the Pentagon Washington DC from Abe Pollin the owner of the Washington Redskins. The block was upgraded and renamed The Cavendish. Shortly afterwards he purchased 180 apartments known as The Lancaster Columbia Pike and adjacent to the Pentagon also for condominium conversion. Byron-Collins commuted to and from Washington on a monthly basis by Concorde. During the 1980s John Eames decided to remain in the USA and purchased Byron-Collins shareholding in First State Holdings. In 1985 upon instructions of the former St Vincent and the Grenadines chief of Police Colonel Sydney Anderson his companies marketed an estate of serviced plots estate on the Windward beach side of St Vincent at Argyle Gardens. As a result he decided to build a second home with the help of Mick Jagger's Mustique architect Mario Spinella the celebrated Italian architect. This was at Rose Gardens on the south side of St Vincent overlooking Young Island being an extensive villa set in 5 acres of tropical grounds. That same year he moved the business from Beaconsfield to the West Country and acquired Somerton Court Somerton Somerset being a 17th century manor house with three cottages and 60 acres. In 1992 he formed The Welbeck Estate Group having relocated the business to the City of Wells Somerset acquiring the former headquarters of the Somerset and Wiltshire Trustee Bank located in the city centre. The group expanded rapidly and specialised in the purchase of former military facilities having acquired 35 former Ministry of Defence airfields and married quarter estates. His aviation interest continued with the purchase in 1996 of HRH Prince Philip's former Queens Flight de Havilland Dove aircraft G-HBBC of which was the subject of a £300,000 renovation. This was the aircraft in which Prince Philip learned to fly and he captained on 67 occasions. A support aircraft was purchased an ex RNAS Yeovilton Sea Devon G-RNAS and both were based at Compton Abbas airfield.

Roger Byron-Collins and The Welbeck Estate Group relocated to Norway in 2012 where they remain active