For more than two decades, everything Calum Melville touched turned to gold.
After setting up his own company – GTC Group – at the age of 21, hard work and entrepreneurship brought him the trappings of wealth many people long for.
With a multimillion-pound business empire, a huge home in one of Aberdeen’s most exclusive addresses and a Bentley in the driveway, he had it all.
By the time he sold Grimsby-based Cosalt in 2007, he and brother Stuart were estimated to be worth £100million. In 2009 he also joined the board on First Division side Dundee FC, and in months his rumoured £1.3million investment had propelled them to the top of the table.
He was named Grampian Industrialist of the Year in 2010. The brothers had been kept on at Cosalt – Calum as chairman and Stuart in charge of operations – after the 2007 deal.
But by September 2010 Calum was suspended. Stuart Melville was also put on gardening leave.
Weeks later, Calum quit the board of Dundee FC.
Cosalt’s probe, it later emerged, had uncovered an equipment shortfall worth more than £4million and forensic accountants were drafted in to examine where the gear, and money, had gone.
Lawyers for Cosalt launched a civil action against the businessmen and London-based supplier Meapac Ltd in 2010.