Multi-million pound questions

Self-made multi-millionaires can be unpredictable at the best of times.

So I was slightly nervous when I rang the mobile of Dunelm founder Bill Adderley this morning to ask him about his decision to sell part of the business for £48m.

Previously, the man who set up the £400m-turnover homeware chain from a Leicester Market Stall in 1979 has been unwilling to speak to me.

My usual approach to interviewing multi-millionaire business people is to start by praising their achievements and saying how inspiring I and others find them (which most of the time is quite true) and then posing more and more difficult questions, which, if pushed too far can result in things ending rather abruptly.

To be fair to Mr Adderley, he was willing to engage in a conversation about his reasons for selling a 7.8% share of the business, as well as his views on the future of Dunelm. Our chat went on for more than 10 minutes and the interview can be seen in the business section of tomorrow's Leicester Mercury. However, as is usually the case, he was more forthcoming on some subjects than others.

The main thing which came across from Mr Adderley - who still controls more than a third of the business - was the fact he is a down-to-earth man far removed from the pin-stripe City brigade which had advised him now was a good time to offload some of his shares.

It is easy to knock wealthy business people, particularly during a recession, but Mr Adderley's positiveness and sense of pride in the business was quite inspiring. Having come into work this morning feeling I may have been coming down with swine flu, I felt genuinely reinvigorated afterwards.