Neither Thomas Flohr nor I can work out what meal we’re having at 9.15am at 5 Hertford Street in Mayfair.
I have just flown in from Delhi and he from Milan, where he lives part-time, so it’s late lunchtime for me and late breakfast-time for him. Brunch seems appropriate. He orders yoghurt, which he ignores when it arrives in favour of his avocado, poached egg and smoked salmon. I go for the English breakfast, with toast and marmalade.
Nowhere does crispy bacon better than 5 Hertford Street, although our Italian waitress seems bemused by the breakfast habits of the English. For her, perhaps the traditional Italian breakfast of a Marlboro Red is best. At least everyone can agree on what to drink: coffee. Double espresso for Flohr; cappuccino for me.
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Flohr, 64, is wearing a navy blazer and white shirt, with blue trousers. His face is that of a man who has lived a lot. He travels 200 days a year running his private jet company, VistaJet, and ‘relaxes’ by competing in World Endurance Championship racing – eight several-hour-long races in Le Mans cars, building up to the 24-hour race at Le Mans. He drives for Ferrari.
‘It’s a fantastic balance of head and body – physically and mentally very demanding,’ he says. His team is fourth in the championship when we meet in May. It’s a good performance – but not as good, he claims, as that of his Dubai-headquartered firm. Last year VistaJet reported a 20 per cent increase in membership and EBITDA of $810 million. ‘If we take 2019 to 2024, the company tripled in size, more than tripled in revenue and EBITDA, and almost tripled in fleet size,’ he says as he mixes his egg yolk with avocado.
He chalks up his success to the subscription model to which he has stuck doggedly since he founded his firm in 2004. It is ‘the sweet spot’, he argues, between full and fractional ownership (which have higher upfront costs and a longer-term commitment) and ad hoc charter bookings (which he says do not offer a consistent fleet experience and have stricter cancellation policies). VistaJet subscribers choose how many hours a year they want to fly and pay in advance. In return, the company guarantees to provide the most luxurious jet for the route, from a Cessna Citation XLS for a short hop to a Bombardier Global 7500 for 10 hours or more.
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‘All wealthy and influential people do is consume well-established brands, but when we started, most operators offered poor, inconsistent service,’ he says. ‘They couldn’t guarantee what jet you’d be on and it was like a bus service – “You do this, you do that, you sit here, you can eat these sandwiches” – and for $10,000 an hour! So we created the best brand with the best jets and the best service.’
Flohr’s fleet is 250-strong. On board, the in-flight socks are made of cashmere and the blankets are woven from wool from baby alpacas. Every jet, which costs between $8,000 and $25,000 an hour to charter depending on its size, has a British-trained butler. Food can be ordered from your favourite restaurant and delivered just minutes before
take-off. ‘This is the lifestyle our clients are living. That’s what we’re trying to give them,’ Flohr says.
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Little wonder Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Claudia Schiffer, Novak Djokovic, Taylor Swift and Barack Obama are regular VistaJet fliers, along with a host of corporate CEOs.
Flohr, who owns more than 80 per cent of VistaJet, lives the life of his customers. Home is a 35,000 sq ft, seven-storey mansion in the Swiss Alps, with a private cinema, bowling alley and spa. If it sounds like it belongs in a Bond film, you’d be right – Flohr’s rosewood desk featured in From Russia with Love. He travels on a Swiss passport. Some of his tastes may, however, be a little too rich. For his daughter Nina’s 18th birthday, he threw a party for 300 guests that included a historical re-enactment of the rise of Communism. Actors were hired to dress as Soviet soldiers and Bolshevik peasants.
Flohr may be keen to paint a rosy picture of his business and his life, in part, because for the past year he has been embroiled in gruelling legal disputes. Last year he was accused of fraud in London’s High Court. The case centred on €13.5 million of investments made from 2002 by Frontiers Capital, a Guernsey Limited Partnership controlled by Timothy Horlick, in Comprendium UK, a UK business which Flohr chaired. Horlick claimed Flohr used a parallel set of companies, also named Comprendium, to purchase the Swiss and German subsidiaries of his former employer Comdisco, a US computer equipment leasing business that had collapsed into bankruptcy. Comprendium UK subsequently failed.
Horlick, the former husband of City ‘superwoman’ Nicola Horlick, alleged Flohr made ‘substantial profits’ from the Comdisco assets and ‘kept hidden the true purpose, extent and structure of the parallel companies’. Horlick was seeking losses and damages exceeding €150 million.
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Flohr’s lawyers called the claim ‘hopeless’ and the allegations ‘unevidenced’. In March this year the High Court handed down a judgment in Flohr’s favour, dismissing the claims against him on limitation grounds.
‘The case was so ridiculous. We’ve stopped this nonsense,’ Flohr tells me, as he stops pretending he does not want some of my toast and marmalade and grabs a piece, declaring that the marmalade is the best he has ever tasted. He goes on to claim: ‘The entire case has been struck out and dismissed. There is no prospect of appeal due to another Supreme Court decision on a similar case.’ Flohr is seeking to recoup what he says are his multimillion-pound legal costs from Frontiers Capital. ‘They lost. They have to pay.’
However, lawyers for Horlick and Frontiers Capital say Flohr’s comments are ‘not factually correct’. In a written statement to Spear’s, they said it is ‘a misunderstanding to state there is no prospect of appeal’ and argued that none of the court rulings ‘preclude a new claim against Mr Flohr’, which they say Horlick and Frontiers Capital intend to bring. Frontiers Capital told Spear’s the firm would also be pursuing Flohr to recover its legal costs.
Flohr’s legal travails do not end there. In April VistaJet brought an action in the Maltese courts against John Matthews, boss of rival private jet operator AirX, accusing Matthews and his employees of ‘malevolent, negligent and egregious conduct’ designed to disrupt VistaJet’s business and tarnish the company’s reputation. VistaJet is seeking
€386 million in damages.
VistaJet brought the case after it obtained 139 pages of WhatsApp messages and emails which it claims show that AirX had been contacting VistaJet’s suppliers, bondholders, ratings firms and journalists, raising questions about VistaJet’s corporate structure and drawing attention to its $4.25 billion debt pile. Flohr claims Matthews said his business methods were unethical and discussed how VistaJet’s ‘challenges’ could benefit AirX. Flohr wrote to VistaJet bondholders to tell them that ‘for the last 18 months, a group of individuals seeking to damage… our business has disseminated half-truths, false rumors and lies’.
Matthews has described VistaJet’s claim for damages as ‘fantastical’, and in an open letter to Flohr he wrote: ‘Thomas: I am unafraid of you; in fact, I have never felt so empowered.’ He has applied to the Maltese court to strike out Flohr’s claim in its entirety. In a statement to Spear’s, Matthews said: ‘I’ve always found it astonishing that I’m blamed for “financial damage”. I’ve still seen no evidence of damage.’
Shortly before this article went to press, Flohr wrote an email to Spear’s seeking to ‘withdraw any comment I made with regards to any litigation…We must and will stay away from any comments about lawsuits’.
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He said that after consulting his lawyers he wished to replace all his comments on the litigation with the sentence: ‘He refrained from commenting.’ He said: ‘That is our official line.’ He added: ‘Frontiers and AirX comments are irrelevant since I never commented.’
As the litigation – and any comments Flohr may or may not wish to make about it – continues, Flohr is raising fresh capital to expand. VistaJet recently secured $600 million in equity and raised an additional $700 million in an oversubscribed capital offering. He will use the new money to reduce debt repayments by about $160 million this year. He will also upgrade his fleet, introducing higher-speed wifi to enable passengers to stream media at any time. ‘That’s expensive,’ he points out.
As he finishes the last drop of his second espresso, Flohr tells me he is ‘focusing on further disrupting this industry. The addressable market is gigantic and growing usually at about double GDP.’ He is eyeing expansion in Asia and Africa and new routes in Europe. With so many non-doms leaving London for Milan after recent tax changes in the UK, ‘we’re seeing lots more flights between Milan and the UAE. Many people used to fly from London to Dubai and are now flying from Milan to Dubai. We see a huge and long runway ahead.’
Once all the litigation is settled.
This article first appeared in Spear’s Magazine Issue 96. Click here to subscribe
