Simon Fuller, the entertainment Svengali who once managed the Spice Girls, says: “I don’t like the word ‘celebrity’,” which is curious for a man who has made his fortune creating and developing the famous.

Today Mr Fuller’s 19 Entertainment represents David and Victoria Beckham, owns the rights to American Idol, and is working out ways to bring British talent – such as Little Britain – to the United States.

For Mr Fuller, though, celebrity is just the starting point. The 46-year-old’s talent is in tipping the balance of power and cash away from media or leisure companies and towards his clients, which in the process has made him a fortune running into tens of millions.

Take David Beckham. Mr Fuller’s company helped to negotiate the outrageously lucrative signing of the former England captain to the Los Angeles Galaxy. Beckham gets £125 million over five years, but Mr Fuller tries to characterise the deal in other terms. The footballer’s move to America is about “using his power and influence to maybe, just maybe, introduce soccer into the mainstream of the United States”.

That sounds immodest, but Mr Fuller, who speaks softly but fizzes with ideas, somehow pulls it off. Perhaps that is his secret – reinventing popular culture sounds plausible coming from him. His success so far has prompted Time magazine to name him as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.

If managing David Beckham is all about milking what’s established, Idolis the manufacturing process live on prime-time television. The format, controlled by 19, in partnership with RTL’s Fremantle Media, may have been displaced by former partner Simon Cowell’s X-Factor in the UK, where the show was called Pop Idol, but in the US last year’s show on Fox remains the most popular entertainment programme. Mr Fuller hopes that it will “be like the FA Cup Final or the Super Bowl” – part of the annual cultural furniture.

“ Idolgives people the right to have a relationship with a singer just by watching the show,” Mr Fuller says, which is helpful for him because as well as controlling the programme rights 19 has the right to sign up any of the finalists as recording artists – Will Young is still on the books.

Mr Fuller started out a music manager in 1985, and the company name comes from Paul Hardcastle’s 1980s hit 19. Now, he says, “the music world is in disarray,” which is code for an opportunity. He wants to sell music digitally via artist web-sites, where “while you are there you have another experience” that links you to the singer or band. He gives no further details though.

He has been criticised for raking in cash at others’ expense – S Club 7, another of his pop group projects, made only a few hundred thousand pounds each despite popular success. Ask him politely if he ripped off S Club, and he says that they were kids “who wanted to be on TV or sing or act or dance”.

Pointing out that he has acted for Annie Lennox “for 17 to 18 years,” he says he is capable of holding down long-term artist relationships, even if he was sacked by the Spice Girls (he has since acted for most of them individually).

“It’s never about making money,” Mr Fuller insists, like many an entrepreneur. “All money does is act as a guide for how well you are doing.”

How much? Mr Fuller sold 19 to CKX, the vehicle of US talent mogul Robert Sillerman, for £83 million in 2005. Mr Sillerman is building up a larger version of 19, owning Elvis’s mansion Graceland and the image rights of Muhammed Ali, but 19 provides three quarters of CKX’s revenues ($151 million out of $210 million) and the bulk of operating profit ($28.8 million last year). Not bad, particularly as Mr Fuller, who is two years into a six-year contract, only earned $1.56 million as an employee.

Yet, the talent Svengali is sure he is not being exploited too. “Realising value is a smart thing to do” he says. “Otherwise you are forever pedalling away.” Mr Sillerman, he says, is teaching him “the financial world on a grand scale” and one day he will run his own business again. “At 46 you are not too old” – as long as you can keep manufacturing celebrities the public will buy.

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