James Hanson, Baron Hanson
| The Lord Hanson | |
|---|---|
| Born | 20 January 1922 Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England |
| Died | 1 November 2004 (aged 82) Newbury, Berkshire, England |
| Occupation | Company director |
James Edward, Baron Hanson (born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire on 20 January 1922 – 1 November 2004) was an English Conservative industrialist who built his businesses through the process of leveraged buyouts through Hanson plc.
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[edit] Career
Educated at Elland Grammar School near Halifax and Merlegh School (now closed), James Hanson served as a staff officer with 7th Battalion, the Duke of Wellington's Regiment before going into the family transport business.[1] Lord Hanson and Gordon White (later Lord White of Hull) formed a partnership in the 1960s, whereby they founded a greetings card business.[2] The two men also began buying other companies, in such diverse industries as fertilisers and bricks, which all sat under the umbrella of a listed entity called Hanson Trust (later renamed simply Hanson). By the 1980s, the Hanson Trust operated in both Europe and North America, purchasing undermanaged businesses in sectors such as batteries, locks and safes.[3] He was knighted in 1976 and created Baron Hanson, of Edgerton in the County of West Yorkshire, a life peerage, in 1983.[3]
Lord Hanson's greatest deal was the 1986 purchase of Imperial Group, a British tobacco conglomerate with a diversified portfolio of underperfoming businesses.[4] Lord Hanson's consideration for the transaction was funded entirely by selling many of Group's subsidiaries, leaving him with a business that made an operating-profit margin of nearly 50%. The mark of a Hanson company was that of a short term cash-generating machine, large scale redundancies, and research and development slashed to the bone.[2]
Lord Hanson developed a reputation as a corporate raider, which worked against him in a failed bid for ICI Group, a chemical group, in 1991 which was at the time the UK's third-largest company.[4] ICI, led by its chairman Sir Denys Henderson hired Goldman Sachs to look into Lord Hanson's business dealings, and they found that Lord Hanson's partner, White, was running racehorses at shareholders' expense.[2] Lord Hanson had purchased 2.8% of the firm, but backed down from the takeover.[2]
He was well known for his support of ex-Conservative MP Neil Hamilton, who became famous for his involvement in the "cash for questions" affair in the 1990s.[5]
Hanson was also an active "Eurosceptic", opposed as he was to Britain joining the Euro, and was a founding member of Business for Britain, an anti-EU organisation. He was also a member of the Bruges Group, which advocates a substantial renegotiation of Britain's relationship with the EU, or if that is not possible, total withdrawal from the EU.[5]
Hanson’s billion-dollar empire earned him the nickname "Lord Moneybags".[6]
[edit] Personal life
Hanson dated Jean Simmons, Joan Collins and was engaged to Audrey Hepburn for almost a year, until she called off the marriage.[3]
In 1959 Hanson married Geraldine, née Kaelin, an American divorcée. He became stepfather to her daughter, and the couple had two sons of their own. She died of leukaemia in February 2004.
Hanson died, aged 82, after a long battle with cancer, in his home near Newbury, Berkshire.[4]
[edit] References
- ^ Lord Hanson Independent, 3 November 2004
- ^ a b c d Lord of the Raiders The Economist, 4 November 2004
- ^ a b c Corporate Giant and Thatcherite Lord Hanson Dies The Scotsman, 2 November 2004
- ^ a b c Business Giant Lord Hanson dies BBC News, 2 November 2004
- ^ a b A Charming Ladies' Man but a Ruthless Operator Daily Telegraph, 2 November 2004
- ^ James Edward Hanson, Baron Hanson of Edgerton, Encyclopædia Britannica, retrieved April 04, 2010
[edit] External links
[edit] Bibliography
- Alex Brummer and Roger Cowe, Hanson: A Biography (Fourth Estate, 1994) (ISBN 1857021894)
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