Industrialist and administrator; Born November 28, 1922; Died November 24, 2008

Sir Lewis Robertson, who has died aged 85, was an industrialist and administrator who specialised in corporate rescues. He was often called - and indeed Sir Lewis encouraged the claim - that he was the most "methodical man in Scotland". To emphasise the point he included "listmaking" under recreations in his Who's Who entry.

This claim of super-efficiency was no idle boast. In 1991 Sir Lewis was given the high-profile mission of saving Sir Reo Stakis's Glasgow-based hotels and casinos group. After making a £30m profit in 1990 it had come close to bankruptcy following a series of disastrous acquisitions. Chairman Sir Reo made way for Sir Lewis, who cut head office staff by one-third, froze developments and fired Andros, the chief executive son of Sir Reo.

Although the recession of the early 1990s and related property slump delayed the sale of the group's 19 casinos, Sir Lewis succeeded in re-focusing the group on hotels and healthcare and slowly it returned to profit. So successful was his restructuring that in 1999 Sir Reo was able to sell the group to Hilton Hotels for a cool £1.2bn.

Energy and efficiency were hallmarks of Lewis Robertson's life from an early age. The son of John Farquharson Robertson and Margaret Arthur, he was born in Dundee and educated at Ardveck Preparatory School in Crieff and Trinity College, Glenalmond. Deciding to skip university, Robertson trained as an accountant with the family firm and then did a stint in RAF intelligence at the famous Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire.

There, his natural love of lists and methodology came into its own as he learned German for code-breaking purposes, already being proficient in Italian. On demobilisation, Robertson returned to Dundee and joined his father's jute business. By 1954 he was running it and four years later presided over it becoming a listed company called Robertson Industrial Textiles. In 1965 Robertson merged the firm with a larger family company to form Scott and Robertson.

When the Scotts staged a boardroom coup in 1970 - an episode thereafter referred to within the Robertson family as the "Revolt of the Pygmies" - Robertson resigned. He subsequently sat on various public bodies, including the regional health authority and the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. Having been married since 1950 to Elspeth Badenoch (with whom he had four children), this brief spell of unemployment came as a shock.

A permanent position materialised when Robertson was headhunted to save Grampian Holdings, a Scottish group with varied interests which had fallen on hard times. He moved to Edinburgh and within five years Grampian had been restored to health and its profits trebled. When the corporatist Scottish Development Agency was created by Harold Wilson's last government in 1975, Robertson was the natural choice as its first chief executive.

With substantial influence and spending power, Robertson enjoyed the role but not the inevitable political interference. After four years he returned to his new-found love: corporate rescue. The recession of the early 1980s provided ample opportunities.

Aged 59, he was invited to run (and save) F H Lloyd, the Midlands steel founders, followed by similar roles at Triplex, meat traders Borthwicks, construction group Lilley and shopfitters Havelock Europa.

Following each appointment, Robertson would quickly establish his authority by insisting on becoming chairman. Then followed a two-pronged attack, to restore internal confidence and pacify bankers. Borrowings and costs were slashed, more efficient management systems and tighter controls introduced, and new advisers and managers appointed. In the early 1990s Robertson consolidated these skills by setting up his own specialist rescue consultancy, Postern Executive Group, with fellow company doctor Ken Scobie.

Robertson would rebut forcefully criticism of high fees. "I am expensive," he once said. "It is very foolish to pretend there could be or should be a cheap corporate rescue service. Anything companies get for peanuts is fit for nothing but monkeys."

In addition to boardroom positions and quango appointments, he contributed to numerous public, academic and church groups (mainly Episcopal), including the advisory board on the Edinburgh edition of the Waverley novels.

With his big eyebrows, sombre clothes and deep Scots burr, Robertson was an imposing figure but also capable of self-deprecation. He often dined out on a story about a check-up with his doctor shortly after he and Elspeth had moved to Edinburgh. "Clearly an obsessive personality," murmured the GP as he put his notes away. "Well, I am," beamed Robertson.

Robertson was knighted in 1991 for services to industry. He died on Monday after a long illness and is survived by one son and two daughters. Another son and his wife, Elspeth, predeceased him.

DAVID TORRANCE