Moment Danish ASOS billionaire is caught speeding at 82mph in 60 zone

This is the moment police fined the so-called ‘ASOS billionaire’ £100 and gave him three points on his licence after chasing him when he was caught speeding at more than 80mph in a 60 zone in the Highlands.

Anders Holch Povlsen is the fabulously wealthy owner of the international fashion business Bestseller and the biggest shareholder in the British online fashion company ASOS.

The humble Danish retail mogul, worth £6.1billion but known for liking a whisky down the pub and driving a bashed up VW Golf, is Scotland’s richest man with around 220,000 acres of the Highlands under his control after he started buying up some of the country’s grandest estates more than 15 years ago.

But according to the BBC docuseries Highland Cops, even Mr Povlsen, 50, is not above the law.

In the programme’s fourth episode, officers trailed the billionaire for several miles, clocking his speed at 82mph, before stopping him and handing him a £100 fine and three points on his licence.

Police can use ‘discretion’ when stopping traffic law violators, but one officer involved in his traffic stop said ‘there are certain thresholds we abide to’ and require officers ‘deal with offenders’.

Police speaking to the billionaire before handing him a £100 fine 

Officers trailed Mr Povlsen before he slowed down, coming to a stop

Mr Holch Povlsen controls at least 220,000 acres of the Highlands after he started buying up some of the country’s grandest estates. With his wife Anne, they have formed a ‘200-year vision’ for their estates, which involves rewilding the land. The couple are pictured together

Video shows how two police officers in Sutherland initiated a pursuit of a Volkswagen Caravelle van after the driver – later identified as Mr Povlsen – was clocked going 12mph over the speed limit.

‘He was detected at 82mph in the 60 limit, so a bit to fast,’ the officer said. ‘We’ll just try and get him stopped as soon as we can.’

The pair followed Mr Povlsen’s vehicle for along the winding road for several miles, noting how overtaking the roadway would be ‘tricky’. The officers, minding traffic, reiterated that they would not ‘sacrifice safety for gaining anything’.

The officers followed the van over a fixed distance, matching Mr Povlsen’s speed, so they could ‘comfortably say he’s been driving at no less than a certain speed’.

Mr Povlsen started to ‘slow down quite a bit’, leaving the officers to believe he was aware they were behind him. They stopped him at the next opportunity. The officers approached the property tycoon’s vehicle and immediately recognised him. Mr Povlsen exited the vehicle and said, ‘hello’.

One explained how they stopped him and he was caught driving over the speed limit while travelling uphill at Achinduich. Showing him the speed gun, the officer said: ‘That’s your speed recorded there 82.’

The police officer presented Mr Povlsen with his options – to receive a £100 fine and three points on his licence or, if he didn’t accept that, it would be a report to the court. Mr Povlsen said ‘that’s fine’, before commenting on how it was a ‘nice, sunny day’ and there had been ‘no traffic’ on the road.

The officers asked him to confirm his surname was Povlsen – knowing full well who he was and about his various contributions to the Highlands – before handing him the citaiton.

‘When we dealt with this gentleman, I recognised who he was straightaway,’ one officer recalled. ‘He does a lot for the Higlands, he’s invested a lot of money up here, and he’s got a really good interest in the environment and protecting the Highlands for what it is. But irrespective of that, we have to treat everybody equally. ‘When we are stopping people who are speeding, we’ll obviously have our sort of discretion. But there are certain thresholds that we abide to and we have to deal with offenders.’

Mr Povlsen stepping out his vehicle as he is approached by police 

Mr Povlsen listening to officers as he is fined for speeding

Mr Povlsen pulling over after being caught speeding 

Mr Povlsen became enchanted with Scotland when one summer in the 1980s the young boy from Denmark went fly fishing in the Scottish Highlands with his parents and brother.

Some have called it the most expensive family holiday in history because three decades later he has spent £100million quietly turning himself into a real-life Monarch of the Glen.

He began building this ever-growing property portfolio in the autumn of 2006, with the £7.9 million acquisition of Glenfeshie, a 42,000-acre patch of the Cairngorms National Park.

Two years later, he spent another £15.5million acquiring the 23,000-acre Braeroy estate near Fort William, nearby Tulloch, and Lynaberack in the Cairngorms. Four estates were added between 2011 and 2015, and another three in 2016.   

His Scottish landholdings cover an area half the size of Worcestershire, and surpassed the mere 217,000 acres owned by the Duke of Buccleuch – Britain’s biggest land owner before him. 

Partial to a single malt and locally brewed real ale, he is known to visit local pubs in Scotland but rarely says much about himself. 

With his wife Anne, they have formed a ‘200-year vision’ for their estates, which involves rewilding the land. In the vision, Mr Povlsen said he planned to pass the estate along to his four children and that they would continue his work.

But their dream was hit by tragedy when three of their four children were killed in the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka in 2018. Alfred, Alma and Agnes all died. Only their youngest daughter, Astrid, then ten, survived the attacks and the couple said that they remain ‘genuinely grateful’ that she is still alive. 

In an open letter posted after their deaths, Mr Povlsen and wife Anne Storm Pedersen wrote that the project will take longer than a lifetime to complete and so would be carried on by their children after they died.

He wrote: ‘From our home at Glenfeshie, both Anne and myself – our children and our parents too – have long enjoyed a deep connection with this magnificent landscape.

‘As the holdings have grown and our common vision for the work becomes ever clearer, we have incorporated the entirety of the project into a venture we call Wildland.

Mr Povlsen has bought 11 Scottish estates and they are said to be worth £120million – more than double what he is believed to have paid for the properties. But he has spent huge sums rewilding land and refurbishing properties

Aldourie Castle is set within 500 acres of prime Scottish real estate near Loch Ness and is owned by Povlsen

The £7million tied island at Loch Eriboll on the northern tip of Sutherland was bought back in 2016

Povlesen’s first buy was Glenfeshie, whose 42,000 acres inspired Sir Edwin Landseer’s Monarch of the Glen

Lynaberack, tucked away in the Cairngorms, was one of Povlsen’s earliest purchases and cost him £5million

‘It’s a significant and lifelong commitment that we have made – not just for ourselves but for the Scottish people and Scottish nature too – a commitment which we believe in deeply’.

He began building this ever-growing property portfolio 14 years ago, in the autumn of 2006, with the £7.9 million acquisition of Glenfeshie, a 42,000-acre patch of the Cairngorms National Park. Two years later, he spent another £15.5million acquiring the 23,000-acre Braeroy estate near Fort William, nearby Tulloch, and Lynaberack in the Cairngorms. Four estates were added between 2011 and 2015, and another three in 2016.

His Scottish landholdings cover an area half the size of Worcestershire, and surpassed the mere 217,000 acres owned by the Duke of Buccleuch – Britain’s biggest land owner before him.

Partial to a single malt and locally brewed real ale, he is known to visit local pubs in Scotland but rarely says much about himself.

Mr Povlsen’s life as a Scottish laird is all a long way from the tiny Danish town of Brande, with a population of just 7,000, where Povlsen’s father, Troels, opened the family’s first clothes store in 1975.

Other outlets soon followed. And Anders was only 27 when Troels made him the sole owner of Bestseller.

By 2007, it was so successful that supermodel Gisele Bundchen was hired to promote it.

Bestseller employs 15,000 people and boasts nearly 6,000 shops. He owns brands such as Jack & Jones and Vero Moda, and 27 per cent of ASOS.com, Britain’s biggest internet fashion retailer.