OURS is a slow-burning relationship. Lord Hollick and I last met over a tape recorder 17 years ago: he doesn’t give many interviews.

“In 1991, at the Meridien hotel,” he says, with characteristic recall, pouring himself a tea from the sideboard in his swish office. “I remember it because I was launching Meridian television.”

Back then he had just won an ITV franchise, and was intent on building a media empire. Later he added more ITV regions - and newspapers - to a burgeoning hotchpotch of broadcasting, press and financial interests.

Then, after merger plans with Carlton were blocked, he sold much of it, leaving himself just a trade publisher, United Business Media. Then he left that too.

And now here he is at the world’s largest buyout firm, KKR, as the partner master-minding investments in European media. He joined in 2005 and since then has, in his own way, avoided the press. Maybe that’s because KKR seems an unlikely base for a left-leaning lord once nicknamed “The Red Baron”.

Or maybe he doesn’t see the point. He even wrote a newspaper piece last year castigating bosses who chase personal profile. Curious that, because this time he has asked me to come and see him, not the other way round. Has he had a change of heart?

He laughs. “Yeah, I am breaking my own rules and being horribly inconsistent.”

Hollick stirs his tea and changes the subject. KKR certainly seems to suit him. Slim and angular, with designer stubble offsetting a sharp City suit, he looks a decade younger than his age of 62. He also seems more relaxed than he has been for years.

But he has a problem. Hollick wants to whip up interest in the other job that has obsessed him for the past six years, chairing the board of the Southbank Centre, Europe’s largest arts complex.

He is stepping down after overseeing a popular refurbishment of the Royal Festival Hall and its surrounding site. Now he wants another big hitter to step up.

Seeing me may be his way of pumping the crowd and saving some money on job ads – very Hollick – even if he does have to answer questions he would rather avoid. Like is he still chasing ITV with those KKR billions to help?

And why do some people think Hollick’s commerce-first approach to the Southbank – prioritising shops and restaurants to provide extra income – is a deflection from what the site should be about?

But KKR first. Soft carpets, antique furniture, and beautiful works of art decorate its plush St James’s base. Previous Hollick offices were more linoleum in feel.

Is he really at home here? “It offered me the way to remain in business in a way I really like,” nods Hollick. “And I’ve been an investor with private equity for a number of years. I know all the companies, and I really admire Henry [Kravis, KKR’s founder].”

KKR clearly fits Hollick’s buy-build-and-sell approach. He helped KKR buy German broadcaster Pro-Sieben for £3.8 billion in 2006 in a joint deal with Permira. Last year that merged with another KKR-backed European broadcaster, SBS. The new group is active in 13 countries, and challenges Bertelsmann’s RTL group for Europe’s No 1 slot.

Wouldn’t ITV, whose shares hit a record low last week, make a nice fit? Hollick pulls a face. “We have looked at ITV,” he says, “but I don’t think it has the growth characteristics we are searching for. The UK television market is pretty crowded.”

Others think differently. “There’s a price at which anything is of interest to Clive,” says one former colleague knowingly. And Hollick’s interest may not stop at television.

Would he buy a newspaper now? Hollick shakes his head. “I don’t think we would. The cards are stacked against newspapers as you have to make the transition from the pure print model to the online model.”

That makes the price at which he sold Express Newspapers – £125m to Richard Desmond in 2000 – look better with hind-sight. “He paid us the highest price on offer at the time.” says Hollick.

Even though many who worked at the Express felt let down? Hollick looks momentarily caught out. His defence is that the deal was the best for his shareholders.

And the sliding markets surely give KKR more opportunities. He nods. “We’ve got more money, because we have been through fundraising, and we haven’t invested yet. The problem is the credit crunch means the availability of debt has been significantly reduced, so 2008 may be a slower year.”

But you wouldn’t bet on it. Hollick will certainly have more time for plotting, now he is stepping down from the Southbank Centre. He took over from Elliott Bernerd as chairman of the board in 2002. What he has achieved there, in an unpaid post, may be of more lasting significance than any media empire bought or sold.

The centre, including the Royal Festival Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Hayward gallery, sits on 21 acres of prime Thameside real estate opposite the Savoy. It had long been earmarked for development, but racked by delays and disputes. Hollick, who has little arts experience – though his wife is a longstanding Arts Council member – seems to have turned that round.

Most significantly he pushed through a £110m refurbishment scheme, building shops and a new office block adjacent to the Royal Festival Hall, that has revived the site. Yet it faced considerable opposition.

“At the initial planning meeting I can remember Kate Hoey, the local MP, shouting ‘Lord Hollick, we’ll see you in court’. She never did, but it was a good speech.”

Arts professionals cite Hollick’s relentless commercial drive. “Clive’s charming but tough, and very exacting on getting results,” sums up Michael Lynch, the Australian chief executive brought in by Hollick to head the centre. Lynch says Hollick added a new dynamic. “It’s about getting away from significant reliance on public subsidy, while maintaining artistic integrity.”

The Festival Hall reopened to acclaim last summer – Hollick started the first concert by walking on stage with a camera and photographing the audience – and the site has a plan for sequential development. The public have voted with their feet, with 250,000 attending the opening weekend.

Hollick now wants more companies and individuals as sponsors. The naming rights for the Hayward – named after a former leader of London county council – are next up for grabs.

Is there anything he wouldn’t accept? Hollick grins. A cheque for £20m should get it.

The KKR gallery sounds good. “Er, I don’t think so.” He can think of a newspaper proprietor, however, who should sponsor an auditorium at the Festival Hall.

No surprise that Hollick’s first ambition was to be a journalist. He has that snitty wit. Brought up in Southampton, the son of a French-polisher, he attended the same grammar school as Gavyn Davies, another Labour millionaire – “but younger, smarter, and richer” grins Hollick. He even wanted to join the BBC after Nottingham University.

A friend nudged him towards the City. Taken on at Hambros when it wanted to broaden out beyond its staple Oxbridge intake, Hollick cut a swathe through the Hooray Henries. Yet despite being numerate, ambitious and iconoclastic, he never quite fitted in. He made his name saving money broker Vavasseur after the 1973 secondary-banking crisis. He later turned it into research and advertising group MAI, and grew an ever-shifting empire through the 1980s and 1990s, half in and half out of establishment City circles.

That stemmed from his long-term links to the Labour party, advising Neil Kinnock and bankrolling the think tank IPPR from 1988. He was made Baron Hollick of Notting Hill in 1991.

He says he is uncertain of what drives him on. His father loved his job as a French-polisher, working on the dining tables of the rich. “I tried polishing but I’m too impatient,” says Hollick. “What it taught me was to find something you enjoy, and get on with it.”

Is it the deals he loves? Charles Gregson, chairman of Icap, another Hollick offshoot, describes him as the best dealmaker he has ever seen. “Great brain, great psychologist.”

Yet Hollick was thwarted in his ambitions to build ITV plc, blocked by government from merging his United News & Media with Carlton in 2000. Granada was allowed to merge with Carlton just two years later. That must be frustrating. Hollick shrugs. “The competition authorities did a poor job.”

I bet he would probably have sold ITV once he built it. He laughs. Old friends say Hollick has loosened up. “I think Clive is less austere with himself than he was,” says Simon Albury, chief executive of the Royal Television Society and an old university mate. “But that may be KKR.”

Gregson agrees. “If there’s a business made for Clive, it’s private equity.”

Or could it be that Hollick has found something new? “Do you know,” he says, on parting, “chairing the Southbank has been the most fulfilling job I’ve ever done.”

Then Hollick catches himself. “Let’s meet again in another 17 years,” he quips. “Who knows what we’ll both be doing then?”

LORD HOLLICK’S WORKING DAY

THE KKR partner wakes in his home in Notting Hill, west London, by 6.45am. “I work out twice a week, otherwise I get picked up by Phil, my driver, and get into work before 8am,” says Lord Hollick. Meetings and conference calls follow. “It’s a very flat organisation – two people work with me on media.”

Hollick entertains lunch guests at KKR, or at the St Alban restaurant nearby. Later he will attend the House of Lords. In the evening he will catch a concert or the theatre. “Chairing the Southbank may be unpaid, but you attend the best shows in London,” he says.

VITAL STATISTICS

Born: May 20, 1945

Marital status: married, with three daughters

School: Taunton’s grammar, Southampton

University: Nottingham

First job: graduate trainee, Hambros

Salary package: Undisclosed. Pension from United Business Media estimated at £762,000 a year

Homes: London, New Forest and New York

Car: grey Mercedes

Favourite book: Middlemarch, by George Eliot

Favourite music: Wagner’s Ring Cycle

Favourite film: Pulp Fiction

Gadget: lob wedge golf club

Last holiday: riding in Ecuador and visiting Galapagos islands

DOWNTIME

“THEATRE, cinema and spending time with friends,” says Lord Hollick, listing his hobbies. He is part of a walking group that holidays together. “We did part of the Cathar trail in the Pyrenees recently.” And he collects contemporary art. Michael Craig-Martin is a favoured artist. He is also a season-ticket holder at Arsenal. “Its ingredients for success are a strong manager, stable board, right skill set – just like the Southbank.”

Now he has stepped down from the Southbank Centre, he wants to spend more time supporting Amref, the African medical aid charity whose UK arm is chaired by his wife, Sue Woodford.