Money & Me: ‘I have learnt expensive financial lessons'

Entrepreneur Victor King says debts and a bounced cheque case have reshaped his spending outlook

Victor King, chairman and chief executive of Absolute Communications Group, says he only buys things when he has three times the money. Antonie Robertson / The National

Victor King is chairman and chief executive of Absolute Communications Group, a design, digital and public relations agency in Dubai.

Educated in New Delhi and London, and of Indian descent, he previously worked in sales, publishing, business development and public relations.

Mr King, 46, has endured financial ups and downs, including debts and a bounced cheque case that reshaped his spending outlook.

Now debt-free with a diverse investment portfolio that includes non-traditional assets, his entrepreneurial endeavours also feature a new audio/video media business information service and a website for consumer technology news and reviews.

Mr King lives in Jumeirah Village Circle with his wife and two daughters, aged 11 and 6.

How did money fit into your childhood?

Both parents were chartered accountants, my dad in the public sector, my mum in the private sector, pretty much a signature middle class life where you wait for bonuses to go on holidays and save for your kids’ education. They made sure we went to the best schools, more than they could afford.

Money, as with any middle class family … you always want more of it and education becomes a ladder, which helps us climb commercially.

Any early entrepreneurial experiences?

When I was 13, I bought a lot of comic books. During the summer holidays, I decided to make money by starting a rental store outside my house in New Delhi.

It failed and I lost all my comic books without getting enough money, but it gave me educational direction.

Instead of being an engineer, which everyone was grooming me to be, I took commerce and business as my majors and started working on the side to understand the spending and earning of money better.

What jobs did you do?

I flipped burgers in McDonald’s, fried chicken, sold life insurance; jobs a typical college student would do to make extra money.

The idea is to put as little pressure on parents as possible. I kept a note of fees and the moment I started earning, helped with whatever money they invested in me, not that they wanted it.

My first salaried job was when I worked with IBM for 10 months as a programmer, before realising again this was not what I dreamt of.

I resigned from a highly paid job and went on a sabbatical/backpacking trip to Thailand and Cambodia.

How did Dubai happen?

I came to the UAE as a tourist, fell in love with the city in 1999 and started as a marketing executive in a consumer electronics company in Jebel Ali.

I worked with Yellow Pages for a few years to save more money and went to London to do a diploma in news writing and journalism.

Once I came back, I started to fall in love with PR and was doing freelance work to get experience.

Have there been financial challenges?

Specifically with regards to our expansion (of Absolute) in India. We saw growth and we were happy going from a three-person team to 36.

My mistake was not having enough cash reserves as a sole proprietor to sustain the downturn. I started paying salaries using my credit cards, with borrowed money.

I call it a beautiful lesson; I should have been careful while spreading my wings.

So, learning is important?

Absolutely, from other people’s mistakes, other people’s success, those helped me to understand and made me who I am today.

My initial lessons from books I read … I found answers to the most difficult questions in the most difficult times.

Still, you end up doing mistakes. It is OK to get into trouble as long as you find a way back.

Whether you are a business or employed, there is always volatility.

I have seen the downturn from a four-bedroom house to a one-bedroom house with my family of four. I promised myself I would only move once I had paid the last dollar (of debt).

You became a disciplined spender?

I only buy things when I have three times the money; if I want a bike, I can only spend a third to buy it.

When I bought a car, I paid cash. That is the commitment I made, I will never borrow — whether buying a sandwich, or an apartment.

You want to enjoy the luxury of a villa, rent one for a weekend; just because you are on holiday in a five-star hotel does not mean you need to own one.

With renting, I can scale up and scale down as I please.

How about growing wealth?

Diversification becomes critical, specifically with small businesses. It is important to make sure you have investments and your money in different pots.

I do stocks and shares, personally; I don’t work with a broker. Short-term trading has done very well for me.

I have grown to about a $25,000 portfolio, started with $200 during Covid-19. I made money, I lost money, but I average out to a higher return.

When I started understanding better, I put in more and withdrew more. Last week, I drew $11,000 off my portfolio.

A long-term, non-conventional investment in Scotland, I own 20 or 30 casks (single-malt whiskey). I only need to sell two or three and I can live a happy retired life.

Do you have a money philosophy?

The practical answer would be, it is something where more is never enough. The emotional, more philosophical answer … it is a by-product of your happy journeys.

In one of the Indian movies, a statement I quote a lot is: “Run behind excellence, success will follow; don’t run behind success.”

That has become a sort of derivative of money for me — don’t run behind money. Money will follow if you are doing the right thing, if you are surrounded by the right kind of mindsets.

But does it bring happiness?

Money is a by-product of everything you do correctly. Those right things include not only making the right business decisions, taking the right job or not borrowing money.

It is about spending time or money with friends and family, making sure that is equally important.

I make more money the next week because I am happy. Rather than happiness coming from money, money comes from happiness.

Are you wise with money?

I am wiser, not only with money but with everything. Everything I do, I go deep into understanding the layers of complexities involved, whether in business or personal relationships, and making sure I make those commitments — whether they are driven by finances or my personal time — more thoughtfully.

Any spending regrets?

Committing to a Dh110,000 ($29,952) Harley-Davidson, which I never got to ride because we could not afford it. The Dh10,000 deposit could have been better spent on a family holiday.

I was impulsive, frivolous. I had just bought a car, a Ford Mustang being imported from the US. My thought was: “Spend the money and then find ways to earn it.”

I picked up a couple of helmets. Those sat brand new in the box for eight years, they became sort of a symbol to remind me never to make those mistakes again.

What have you been happy paying for recently?

My first holiday in 13 years with my family, since I started Absolute — three weeks, five cities in India, teaching my children a bit of Indian culture.

Everything was paid in cash, including the tickets, the hotels.