Billionaire businessman John Caudwell has announced he is set to become a father for the seventh time – at the age of 70.
According to John, he and his wife Modesta Vzesniauskaite, 39, are expecting their baby girl to arrive ‘very soon’. She will be their second child together.
He announced the news in a tweet, in which he shared a scan image of the baby.
The tweet said: ‘Our baby girl is due this month. Based on the latest scan, she’s ready to come out soon!
‘[Modesta] and I have a first name but aren’t sure about a middle one. Feel free to suggest girls’ names that sound good with Caudwell.
Billionaire businessman John Caudwell (pictured) says the baby girl he is expecting with partner Modesta Vzesniauskaite (pictured) is likely to arrive ‘very soon’
‘Libby, Rebekah and Scarlett are already taken!’
John already has six children; Rebekah, 42, Libby, 34, Rufus, 25, Scarlett, 20, and Jacobi, 18, and William John who was born in 2021.
Meanwhile, former Olympic cyclist Modesta has one son, Leonardo, 11, from her first marriage.
According to reports, Modesta is en route from Stafford to Monaco, where she is planning to give birth. One of the billionare’s several homes is in the country.
John Caudwell, who was born in working-class Stoke, is the son of an engineering products salesman and a mother who worked in a post room to make ends meet.
His career included working 20-hour days trying to run first a corner shop, then a mail order motorcycling business and a car showroom.
Even when, in the late 1980s aged 35, he landed on the mobile phone business that would go on to become Phones 4u, the path was fraught with years of pitfalls.
It took Caudwell eight months to sell his first consignment of handsets and for the first two years the business ran at a loss every month.
![John Caudwell (pictured at the annual charity Butterfly Ball at The Londoner Hotel in 2022), is already father to six children](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/03/07/12/68419581-11830197-image-m-5_1678191070306.jpg)
John Caudwell (pictured at the annual charity Butterfly Ball at The Londoner Hotel in 2022), is already father to six children
‘It always felt like a house of cards — it was a constant battle,’ he has said of his career.
He remembers one terrifying moment when he was shipped stock by his supplier, Motorola, only for them to promptly drop the price the next day.
‘They dumped this equipment on me and suddenly my stock was devalued by £10 million.
‘Ten million! That’s three years’ worth of profits and I had to find a way of fighting through that.’
![Baby girl: Alongside his Twitter announcement of the impending birth of his daughter, John Caudwell shared this scan image of the imminent arrival](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/03/07/12/68419583-11830197-image-a-8_1678191346444.jpg)
Baby girl: Alongside his Twitter announcement of the impending birth of his daughter, John Caudwell shared this scan image of the imminent arrival
‘Every day there was a crisis. Not life-threatening crises, but crises nonetheless.’
The major success of his professional life came in 2006, when he sold his Phones 4u firm for a staggering £1.46 billion.
His older children are now scattered around the globe, although John is keen to emphasise that they have made their own way.
‘They’ve had the luxury, but I kept them quite short of money in their teenage years, still do, because I want them to have the pride of fighting for themselves, learning the value of money, the value of life,’ he has previously said.
‘I’m very proud of them in that respect. I brought them up to understand that if all you’re doing is chasing luxury and the next best thing, it will just lead to a very unsatisfactory life.’
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