Businessman who made millions out of the mobile phone explosion
MIKE McCOMB is one of Merseyside's richest individuals, with the Sunday Times Rich List estimating his personal fortune at around £50m.
However, he admitted last night that was a conservative estimate and said it was probably more than £70m.
He opened the first outlet of the Mobile Phone Store in Southport in 1993 after quitting the car dealership he part-owned and over the next few years he expanded the chain, opening 129 outlets across the UK.
Having been involved in car phones through his car dealership he could see the potential of personal mobiles.
Mr McComb began the retail chain at just the right time. It was during the early to mid-1990s that mobile phones first became affordable for most ordinary people.
In the years that followed, networks such as Orange, Vodafone, One-2-One and Cellnet saw an explosion in the popularity of the phones which got smaller and smaller.
In 1997 he cashed in part of his stake in the business by selling 40% to BT Cellnet for around £7.7m. Four years later BT Cellnet bought the remaining 60% of the firm from Mr McComb for around £40m just before he was about to float the firm on the stock market.
After selling his stake, the father-of-seven kept busy as a highly-paid consultant to the mobile phone industry.
Over the past 20 years he has also been an active investor in the property market. He has been involved in residential developments both in the North West of England and in southern Spain. He also owns the West Tower hotel in Aughton, Lancashire.
Mr McComb is a leading light in the Marina Dalglish charity appeal which aims to raise £1.7m to build a chemotherapy centre at Aintree Hospitals. One black tie dinner at the hotel he organised last year raised £250,000 alone.
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