City ‘Superwoman’ Nicola Horlick reveals why she spends £5,000 a year on dog food and how she made her first million in her 20s

Investment manager Nicola Horlick was dubbed ‘Superwoman’ as she juggled a City career with raising her six children, writes York Membery.

Now 63, she has been a leading fund manager for 40 years.

During her five years as director of Morgan Grenfell’s UK investment business, the firm’s assets under management grew from £4 billion to £22 billion.

Today she is CEO of Money&Co. – a peer-to-peer lending platform.

Horlick, whose second husband Martin died of prostate cancer in 2022 aged 64, lives with her six dogs in south-west London.

Her eldest daughter, Georgina, died of leukemia in 1998 at the age of 12.

What did your parents teach you about money?

A lot. I grew up in a small village near Chester and worked during the school holidays for the family business involved in the import and export of tanning materials – and worked there full-time for a year after graduating, on a salary of £6,000.

I was lucky because my father allowed me to become actively involved in the core of his business. That taught me a lot about money and how business works.

My younger brother, who is a musician, spent his childhood practicing the piano, trumpet and organ.

I also remember my father complaining a lot about the ridiculous level of taxes – they were incredibly high at that time.

Have you ever struggled to make ends meet?

Not really. I had an incredibly privileged upbringing in a historic house overlooking the Dee Estuary and because my father was usually such a good businessman, I didn’t even think about money.

Have you ever been given stupid money?

By the city’s standards, I was paid very well at a young age. I was a bank director at 28 and had made my first million in my late twenties.

Some people criticize the city’s salaries, but the city is an important part of our economy, and companies pay good salaries because they want the best people.

But if you run your own business, like I do now, you can’t pay yourself the same as a big bank.

What was the best year of your financial life?

I have sold several companies over the years and if you do that you can make a lot of money.

But the best years of my life, in terms of income, were probably when I worked at SG Vermogensbeheer, which I founded in 1997.

The company grew so quickly (my target of raising £5 billion within five years was achieved in two years) that I was receiving very good annual bonuses in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The most expensive thing you bought for fun?

Books and dogs. I’m not very materialistic, but I have a few thousand books and six dogs: two Weimaraners and four Whippets.

I spend about £100 a month – or £1,200 a year – on books and £400 a month on dog food, which works out to about £5,000 a year.

Fortunately, my dogs are quite healthy, although last year I had to pay £1,800 in vet bills and a dog hospital after one of my Weimaraners, Cooper, ate a dozen nectarines and became ill.

Is it worth it? Yes, Cooper in particular has been a tremendous comfort to me since my husband died fifteen months ago.

What is your biggest money mistake?

I built a house 17 years ago that turned into a money pit – I even lost money on it, quite an achievement for a house in London.

My mother was an architect, so I thought I knew how to build a house. I bought a plot of land for £1.6 million and spent a similar amount building a luxury house on the site.

But finding good workers in the capital to work on a domestic housing development is difficult, and costs have been high.

It was all a bad idea and I took a significant financial hit, but it suits me because I tried something I wasn’t qualified to do: I should have stayed with the fund manager.

Best money decision you’ve made?

Setting up and selling companies. And I’ve been working incredibly hard on my current business, which has been a good distraction since Martin’s passing.

Do you have a pension?

Yes, I will get a pension from one of the banks I worked for when I decide to retire, but the rest of my pension pot is in an SSAS (Small Self-Administered Scheme).

If you have money in a defined benefit plan, leave it there because they are great.

If you were Chancellor, what would you do?

First, I would invest in our infrastructure – roads, railways, schools and hospitals – because it is collapsing.

Secondly, I would give companies more incentives to invest. Finally, I would rejoin the internal market; Brexit makes it difficult for our economy to grow.

What is your number one financial priority?

My children have all left home, so my top financial priority is making sure my dogs are fed and continuing to support the charities close to my heart.

• Nicola is chair of the blood cancer charity Anthony Nolan (anthonynolan.org) and a trustee of the Childhood Trust (childhoodtrust.org.uk), which aims to eradicate child poverty in London.