Very recently the Sunday Times published an article criticising Sir Philip Green (PG) for being rude to one of his directors at Amber Day in the late eighties. PG may have acted correctly; if only all the rest of us saw what PG may have seen!
The director PG was referring to, Leslie Warman (LW), sat on the board of Amber Day whilst he was also employed as a director of Lloyds Merchant Bank. Lloyds Merchant Bank is now defunct.
Leslie was a close adviser to me at Heritage plc: he was the director mentioned in the Portuguese article.
He was also a director of Tams Industries, another IPO issued at the same time as Heritage Plc.
PG got heavily criticised for the Amber Day incident.
LW ensured I got rid of my then Financial Director before Heritage floated. This enabled LMB to float Heritage with a member of the ICAEW (instead of a cost and works accountant as FD), and enabled the prospectus to mislead on the value of the debtors and creditors, something I only found out 20 years after the flotation.
But Tams suffered the most. Tams, advised by LW went on an acquisition programme as Heritage had done. I stopped on Grey Monday, as I recognised I was not capable of leading the companies I was being encouraged to acquire.
Gerald Tams got cancer and died.
Tams, which was the very very best manufacturer of ceramic housewares I had seen anywhere in the world, went bust.
I struggled on from the float that should never have happened.
And PG, without the advice of LW (who was there to earn "City fees" for his employer, LMB) reached his full potential, until the City advised him to do the stupid BHS deal.

Jeff Lampert

This blogpost is for information purposes and should not be relied upon as legal advice because it does not consider or take into account your own personal circumstances. If in doubt, seek legal advice.