Vetch won respect for starting and growing retail warehouse group Edge Properties, ultimately selling this outfit for £142m more than 25 years ago. He soon started again with Big Yellow Group. When he floated the Surrey-based self-storage business on the stock market two years after its launch, his strong business record helped pull in the institutional investors that fuelled the new company’s growth. There are now 110 Big Yellow Group sites across the UK and the shares value the company at £2.3bn. Who says you can’t make money out of selling empty space?