John Swinfield's Big Business

ROBERT SANGSTER: First past the Post

The bloodstock business is a multi-billion dollar industry employing thousands of people around the globe. John Swinfield made a TV documentary about Robert Sangster who was an axial figure in the rarefied and risky bank-balance stakes. 
It’s a business closely linked to the lucrative and exploitative gambling industry. It’s often in the spotlight because of its showy image. And it’s frequently nobbled by controversy. Sexism is said to be rife among jockeys. 
Racing and breeding top-flight chargers is a money-spinning casino, with handsome rewards for the winners and big losses for the also-rans. 

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SYNOPSIS

ED ACKER of Pan Am: Triumphs and Tragedies 

Flying taxis, private space shots, aircraft powered by electricity, solar and even hydrogen. Aviation has witnessed swift and tumultuous developments from the heady days of the intrepid Wright brothers taking to the skies over North Carolina at the dawn of the 20th century. 

As Covid and its variations, from Delta to Omicron, wreaks havoc on routes and companies and passenger numbers – commercial airlines have faced some of the most testing times in their chequered and quixotic histories. 

John Swinfield, whose books include the history volume, ‘Airship: Design, Development & Disaster (published by Conway and the US Naval Institute Press, 2012) looks at the winds of change which are sweeping through civil aviation and recalls the time he spent in the United States with Ed Acker, the boss of the mighty Pan Am, the once illustrious and pioneering colossus of the industry. 

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SYNOPSIS

INTO THE RED: how a gift company fell to earth

A high number of different businesses have gone bust lately, many being the victims of Covid. But life in business has always been precarious with more stories of calamity than success. 

Way before the pandemic Red Letter Days was a small British company which took off but subsequently failed. In its hey-day, with its founder Rachel Elnaugh at the helm, customers could send presents and surprise events to lucky recipients. The firm prospered and grew. 

At one time Elnaugh was a regular adviser on BBC TV’s Dragon’s Den, sitting alongside entrepreneurial giants such as Peter Jones, the hi-tech titan. On one occasion she had to face a grilling by Anne Robinson on another TV show, Watchdog, a consumer affairs series. John Swinfield recalls how he tried to help Elnaugh when the consumer champion Anne ‘the Rottweiler’ Robinson made contact with her.

HEAVENS ABOVE: Sir Freddie Laker’s low fares and cheap travel.

In the capricious airline business low cost fliers battle it out. The Hungarian based Wizz Air has collared a chunk of the market and is widely thought to have put in a so-far unsuccessful bid for easyJet. 

The Irish Ryanair, run by the ebullient Michael O’Leary, is planning to quit the London stock market, blaming its departure on Brexit. Loss-making Flybe, which collapsed in 2020, will fly again in 2022. It operated out of Exeter, but second-time round will fly from Birmingham airport, which the West Midlands mayor, Andy Street, has hailed as excellent news. 

Aviation’s commercial dog-fights and today’s proliferation of low-cost carriers in Britain, Europe and the US, can be traced back to the 1970’s when Sir Freddie Laker, a flamboyant prince of the skies, took on the giants of flying with his no frills Skytrain. While John Swinfield was making ‘King’s Flight’, a one-hour TV film documentary for Britain’s Channel 4, which profiled the combative Lord King of British Airways, he spent time in the Bahamas on Laker’s yacht, talking to Freddie about the powerful BA and other national fliers who Laker said had ganged up on him to bring about the downfall of his business. Laker was the people’s champion, a David pitted against aviation’s Goliaths. 

He was once in league with the colourful Harry Goodman, whose rags to riches story saw Goodman open his own airline, Air Europe, and create the International Leisure Group, a major travel company. Laker paved the way for the likes of Virgin, Ryanair, Wizz Air and EasyJet, to challenge the monopoly of flying’s big State carriers.

MARKS & SPENCER: Weathering the storm

Britain’s ubiquitous Marks & Spencer (M&S) with over a 1,000 shops and 78000 workers began as a market stall in the Yorkshire city of Leeds in 1884. Like other familiar high street names it’s had a difficult time but new financial figures are encouraging. 
John Swinfield has known the company for decades. He recalls his friendship with the once-chairman Marcus Sieff and interviewed the current boss, Archie Norman, who at one time ran ITV and the supermarket chain ASDA, selling the latter to the US giant Walmart. As part of M&S’s attempts to rev up its poorly performing clothing sales it’s taken a 25 per cent stake in the eco-online fashion label Nobody’s Child. It’s been working with the brand for a year and has strengthened its involvement by taking a share in it. M&S.com has a close relationship with many well known suppliers including Clarks shoes and dresses by Ghost. Other brands it’s snapped up include the high-end Jaeger. 
Archie Norman’s right hand man is the skilful chief executive, Steve Rowe. He’s an M&S lifer who started out as a 15-year-old Saturday boy; City rumours suggest Rowe may step down in a year or two. If M&S is finally on an upward trajectory, much of it is down to Rowe as well as Norman. Supermarket buy ups are in fashion. More Square Mile and Wall Street gossip has it that the US equity company, Apollo Global Management, has had M&S in its sights as a possible takeover target.   

STRICTLY DELFONT: The impresario Lord Delfont.

Lord Bernard Delfont began as a dancer and rose to the top of the entertainment industry. A powerhouse in London’s theatre land and New York’s Broadway he was part of a media and entertainment dynasty and worked with myriad superstars from Frank Sinatra to Judy Garland. 
His brothers were Lew and Leslie Grade. Leslie was a theatrical agent who died prematurely. Lew became a big wheel in television and cinema. Bernard’s nephew, Michael Grade, ran Channel 4 TV and BBC Television.  
At one time Bernard’s show business and leisure empire covered everything from bowling alleys to theatres, cinemas, sports clubs, even a clutch of seaside piers and the iconic Blackpool Tower with its ornate, chandeliered ballroom, a venue for BBC TV’s Strictly Come Dancing. 

PARTY TIME: Clive Sinclair and Jeffrey Archer

Legendary inventor and computer genius Sir Clive Sinclair was a friend of many years standing of John Swinfield. They met up again at a party given by the Tory peer and novelist Jeffrey Archer and his wife Mary at their Grantchester home in Cambridge. John recalls a colourful cast including Lord Archer, who went to jail for perjury; Michael Edwardes, the cost-cutting boss of stricken car conglomerate British Leyland, and the fruity-voiced thespian Donald Sinden. 
With Oxford and London, Cambridge is in a high-tech golden triangle – and the recipient of an £850 million pound infrastructure investment by Blackstone, one of America’s most powerful investment firms. 

PROFITS TO POPEYE

The world’s biggest mouse house and why Gerry Robinson of Granada TV chose profit over priesthood. Robinson ran Britain’s Granada company. It triggered a takeover battle which changed the face of British TV and enraged the comedian John Cleese of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. 
In America, John Swinfield made a TV documentary about the Disney Corporation, the world’s biggest entertainment conglomerate and home to Mickey Mouse and Popeye. Disney embraces everything from films to theme parks such as Orlando, in Florida. It has myriad businesses – from TV stations, studios and theatres, to global brands like Marvel, Pixar, X-Men and Star Wars, competing with other entertainment colossi such as Comcast, DreamWorks, Netflix, NBC Universal, CBS and Nintendo.

This episode of Big Business is dedicated to Gerry Robinson who sadly died shortly after it was recorded.

Big Bucks and Bold Breakthroughs

Hi-tech is hi-risk. It’s built into the DNA. People and companies make fortunes, others fall by the wayside. In some the science is strong. In others it’s flaky. Deals can be imperilled by myriad factors - not just the purity or effectiveness of the science. 

John Swinfield looks at the roller-coaster world of earth-shaking advances, where business acumen and scholarly endeavour can be harnessed to achieve astonishing goals. 

Cambridge, like Oxford, is a powerhouse of advanced research and scientific development. Cambridge’s Trinity College and bio-tech stars such as Chris Evans; Alec Broers, ex-IBM, who personifies academic and commercial wit; the far-seeing Herman Hauser of the Amadeus Fund and Dr Mike Lynch of the beleagured Autonomy; all played key roles in forging the city’s reputation. But pathfinding companies are not uncontroversial: America’s old-established Hewlett-Packard is locked in a protracted legal battle with Lynch and Autonomy.   

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FORTE

Little Big Man: Lord Forte

The legendary Charles Forte built a hotel and catering empire which straddled the globe, only to see it snatched away in his twilight years in one of the City’s most ferocious takeover battles. 

John Swinfield knew Forte, and his son Rocco, who has built his own portfolio of exclusive hotels. John Swinfield’s essay, based upon the newspaper articles that he wrote, and the television films that he made for ITV about the company and its masters, is a story of our times – one which encapsulates the astonishing rise of a business mogul who started with a milk bar and built a colossus and then suffered the heartbreak of seeing it wrenched away by a hostile predator. 

This episode is dedicated to Sir Gerry Robinson who passed away after it was recorded.