David Ross’s primary woes are down to a big punt on the property market, but his fate has always been closely tied to Carphone Warehouse. As the retail business he co-founded grew, so, too, did his coffers. But as the group’s stock has fallen in the past two years, likewise the shine has come off Mr Ross’s fortune.

At the peak of the company’s value last summer, the 43-year-old businessman’s tranche was worth £726.4 million, accounting for the bulk of what was once a personal wealth valued at about £1 billion.

Carphone has been one of the UK’s great retail success stories, starting from a basement flat and growing into Europe’s biggest mobile phone retailer. The company’s shares dividend has risen every year since it was first paid out, at 1p per share, in 2003. This year’s dividend is expected to be at least 4½p, which will net Mr Ross a welcome £8 million. In 2006, growth looked assured.

Carphone had made acquisitions, including AOL’s UK unit for £370 million, which made the company Britain’s third-largest internet provider. But its shares have tumbled from almost £3 in 2006 to a five-year low of 83p this week. In the past 12 months the fall has been 75 per cent. From £726 million, Mr Ross’s stake is now worth just under £160 million.

Carphone is another casualty of the economic slump, but its shares have fallen also against its peers, underperforming the telecoms index by 62 per cent and the retail index by 58 per cent in the past year.

The company has been exposed to Britain’s economic turmoil, as a retailer and and a telecoms group. As a retailer, it is on the front line of the recession, with Charles Dunstone, its chief executive, admitting that he is “ gloomy” about the sales environment in the run-up to Christmas. Broadband growth has slowed as fewer people moved house and provider. This forced Mr Dunstone to halve the broadband forecast this year.

This could be a triple whammy as mobile phone sales are forecast to fall next year. The shares have been hit further by the May announcement of a £1.1 billion joint venture with Best Buy.

In the past Carphone’s ties with America’s biggest electronics retailer were a boost. Since Carphone formed a partnership with it in 2006 to open stores in the United States, its shares have enjoyed intermittent fillips on hope that Best Buy would bid for it.

Analysts and investors felt Carphone was undervalued in the joint venture and were disappointed there was no special dividend. The group instead used £800 million of its £1.1 billion to repay debt – something doubtless Mr Ross would be pleased to do himself.

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