Harry Conroy gives a personal account of his dealings with Tiny Rowland and describes the battle for the House of Fraser.
For seven years from 1977 until November 119984, when he sold Lonrho's 29.9% stake in the House of Fraser to the Fayed Investment and Trust, Tiny played a dominant role in Scottish business life. In addition to its stake in the House of Fraser, Lonrho also owned Scottish Universal Investments, the Glasgow-based industrial conglomerate built up by Lord Fraser of Allander whose publishing interests included Outram's, publishers of The Glasgow Herald and Evening Times, and Whyte & Mackay whisky.
During his takeover of SUITS, and his struggle to gain control of the House of Fraser, I crossed swords with Tiny Rowland and his right-hand-man, Paul Spicer, on numerous occasions.
My first involvement came as the result of a phone call to my home in April 1978 by merchant banker Bruce Fireman, whose bank Charterhouse Japhet was advising the independent SUITS directors in their opposition to Lonrho's takeover bid. The smooth London banker asked if I would write a story in the Daily Record if he could arrange for the SNP candidate in the Garscadden by-election, which was taking place at the time, to call for the bid to be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
Quickly switching hats, I was a Labour Party activist, I countered by asking him if it would not be better if the Labour candidate in the by-election, Donald Dewar, asked the question as we had a Labour Government? Fireman agreed, and said he had contacts in the office of Roy Hattersley, the Prices Secretary, whom he was sure would respond sympathetically to such a call.
I contacted Donald Dewar, who reacted cautiously, but I persuaded Donald that such a referral was indeed in Scotland's interests as the control of a number of Scottish companies would transfer to London if the takeover went ahead.
Donald wrote to Hattersley asking for the referral, and the Daily Record had the exclusive story.
Hattersley agreed, and the takeover bid was put on ice. Unfortunately, nine months later the MMC allowed the takeover to go ahead and Tiny Rowland took control of SUITS and, with it, a 10% stake in the House of Fraser.
My role in the affair became public knowledge and Tiny Rowland and I had a love-hate relationship following this disclosure. He took to calling me ''The President'' after I was elected president of the National Union of Journalists, and often when I called the Lonrho office in Cheapside, London, he would answer the phone, and pretend that he was ''merely someone close to Mr Rowland''.
We carried on a game of cat and mouse many times during his battle to take over the House of Fraser, using the 29.9% stake he had built up in the department store group as a launching pad.
It was Sir Hugh Fraser himself who allowed Lonrho to gain such a strong stake in the company.
In March 1977 he had sold 7.5 million of his family shares in SUITS to Lonrho for #7m as a two-finger gesture to the City establishment after it had been revealed that he had been selling SUITS shares to pay off gambling debts.
He had warned me: ''It would be my concern to whom I sold the shares not the financial institutions.''
Naively, Sir Hugh believed Lonrho when it said it wanted the shares as an investment. He did not realise that he was letting in a Trojan Horse which would have far-reaching affects on not only himself but also on both SUITS and House of Fraser.
In the SUITS takeover saga he began by supporting Tiny Rowland but switched when he realised Lonrho's real target was the House of Fraser. Having gained control of SUITS, Tiny began, in April 119980, a guerrilla war against the House of Fraser, forcing expensive extraordinary general meetings to be held. He would fly up to Glasgow in his private jet accompanied by Tory grandee Edward du Cann, MP, and Lonrho chairman Lord Duncan Sandys.
Tiny lost a battle to force the House of Fraser to increase the dividend by 2p at an EGM in the Merchants Hall, and then his attempt to prevent the board selling and leasing back its D H Evans Oxford Street property also failed.
However, he told me: ''This is only the second round. It is really only the beginning, and Sir Hugh knows it.''
The true meaning of this remark quickly became clear. Within a week Sir Hugh Fraser had switched sides and allied himself with Lonrho.
Sir Hugh's decision to back Tiny resulted in him being removed as chairman of the House of Fraser. Tiny Rowland's response in January 119981 was to make a #155m outright bid for the company.
The Monopolies and Mergers Commission stepped in and blocked the Lonrho bid for the House of Fraser. This led to Tiny Rowland selling Lonrho's 29.9% stake to the Fayeds. The rest, as they say, is history.
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