Jo Bamford

In early 2021, Wrightbus posted a pre-tax profit of £900k. It had £71.8m in sales for the 15 months to December 2020.

In 2021, Bamford sued an ex-business partner in the U.S. in a dispute over control of a company that the two started together. The business was designed help wealthy, foreign investors get residence in the U.S. in 2017 when Bamford “was strapped for cash following disagreements with his father” in 2017. The case ended with the court denying Bamford’s request to take control of the company. The court also noted that Bamford tried to structure the company to minimize his UK tax bill, saying, “Bamford was interested in holding his interest through an entity rather than personally, which he believed would help minimise his taxes in the United Kingdom.”

In January 2020, Bamford was quoted as saying that Wrightbus “had been helped by politicians including” Smith and Paisley.

Since starting Ryse Hydrogen in 2019, Bamford has lobbied the UK government in favour of hydrogen-technology adoption. After “sustained lobbying” from Bamford, the Secretary of State for Transport announced a programme to convert public transportation in towns into all-electric hydrogen buses. According to Passenger Transport, Grant Shapps was “very, very keen that we push hydrogen” after meeting with Bamford about it.

In 2019, Bamford purchased the previously financially troubled Northern Irish bus manufacturer Wrightbus, the company that produces London's double-decker red buses. After Bamford bought Wrightbus, the company became the first manufacturer of fuel cell double-decker buses.

In September 2019, Wrightbus was placed into administration, with the loss of 1,200 jobs. In that position, the company faced immediate liquidation unless a buyer could be found.

On 11 October 2019 Bamford publicly announced that the deal was done. In his statement, he praised Paisley “for his hard work and diligence in helping to mediate what has at times been a tricky negotiation.”

On 12 October 2019 Paisley wrote an op-ed in the Belfast Telegraph where he praised Bamford and thanked him for buying Wrightbus.

In 2019, Paisley asked Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and Conservative MP Julian Richard Smith to use economic assistance to encourage more bus buyers to buy “more British-made buses.” A year later, Smith began to receive payments from Bamford’s hydrogen company Ryse Ltd., which produces hydrogen for use in hydrogen-powered British-made Wrightbus buses, which totaled over £75,000, according to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The payments from Bamford’s hydrogen company were documented as being for “work as an external adviser on business development.”

Jo Bamford worked at JCB for 14 years until around 2016.

During his trial against a former business partner in Delaware, it was revealed that Bamford is a collector of classic Ferraris and rare pheasants. He also made an attempt in 2013 to buy the Neverland Ranch, the former home of Michael Jackson.

In 2012, Bamford took an ex-business partner, Harry Harvey, to court in a dispute about a personal loan when the two purchased property from aerospace company BAE Systems. The two went into business together in 2011. They paired up to purchase the former military airfield 500-acre Woodford BAE Systems property. Harvey and Bamford formed a company together, called Avro Heritage. In 2012, Bamford filed a lawsuit against Harvey and Avro Heritage. The lawsuit was over a dispute about Harvey allegedly misrepresenting parts of the deal to Bamford when Bamford became a personal guarantor to the loan payments. The judge said that he felt both parties had been “driven by tactical maneuvering seeking to impose a cost burden by one upon the other.” The Sunday Times in December 2012 reported that the judge called Bamford’s claim “inappropriate.”

In 2004, Jo Bamford checked into a drug addiction rehabilitation facility to deal with a marijuana problem. In 2021, he admitted to ordering drugs online as well as sending "explicit, inappropriate photographs."

After graduating from college, Bamford went to work as a fund manager at New Star Asset Management in London. Around 2002, his family invested £4 million into New Star. A fellow employee leaked to the press that Bamford had failed his IMC exam, which is a requirement to work as a fund manager. According to an IMC spokesman, “The exam is a benchmark of basic investment competence. It’s multiple-choice and really isn’t that testing for those who have properly prepared.”

In 2002, Bamford announced that he was moving to Shanghai because he was “sick and tired” of the media attention he received as a billionaire heir. When he left his job at New Star, a colleague sarcastically told the press, “Joe will be sorely missed. Not only was he amusing company he was also superb at playing Solitaire on his computer. He was inspiration at it.”

In 2001, Bamford inherited a £1 billion fortune from his grandfather, Joseph Bamford.

In 2001, Bamford left a relationship with his then girlfriend Petrina Khashoggi after she posed semi-nude in GQ magazine.

Jo Bamford (born Joseph Cyril Edward Bamford in December 1977) is a British businessman and heir to the multi-billion pound JCB family fortune. After working in the family-owned JCB company, he founded a green hydrogen investment fund and purchased Wrightbus, a manufacturer of double-decker buses.

Jo Bamford is heir to a multi-billion pound family fortune. His father, Lord Bamford, "is one of the U.K.'s most successful industrialists", chairman of the UK's JCB Company, a manufacturer of excavators, earthmovers and farming equipment, with over 10,000 employees, founded by Joseph Cyril Bamford in 1945.