James Edward Hanson, Baron Hanson (20 January 1922 – 1 November 2004) was an English industrialist who built his businesses through the process of leveraged buyouts through Hanson plc. Hanson's billion-dollar empire earned him the nickname "Lord Moneybags". The Independent called him on his death "the very archetype of the Thatcherite tycoon".

Early life

James Hanson was educated at Elland Grammar School near Halifax and at the short-lived Maiden Erlegh House School at Earley, formerly the home of Solly Joel. During the Second World War he served as a staff officer with 7th Battalion, the Duke of Wellington's Regiment, before going into the family transport business. 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 under-managed businesses in sectors such as batteries, locks and safes. He was knighted in 1976 and created Baron Hanson, of Edgerton in the County of West Yorkshire, a life peerage, on 30 June 1983.

Hanson's greatest deal was the 1989 purchase of Imperial Group, a British tobacco conglomerate with a diversified portfolio of brand leaders in tobacco, brewing and food, and with a cash rich pension fund, that was his real target. Hanson's team turned up in Bristol the morning of the takeover to find the Pension Trustees had closed the Fund the evening before, denying him the asset. Lord Hanson had expected to use the Pension Fund as consideration for the transaction. However, it was funded entirely by selling many of Imperial Group's subsidiaries, leaving him with a business that made an operating-profit margin of nearly 50%.

Hanson was a prominent corporate raider, which ultimately 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. He was also an active "Eurosceptic", opposed to Britain joining the Euro zone, and was a founding member of Business for Britain, an anti-European Union (EU) organisation. He was also a member of the Bruges Group, which advocated a substantial renegotiation of Britain's relationship with the EU, or if that was not possible, total withdrawal from the EU.

References

Bibliography

  • Alex Brummer and Roger Cowe, Hanson: A Biography (Fourth Estate, 1994) ()
  • Obituary, BBC News