(Redirected from Lord Hollick)'Clive Richard Hollick, Baron Hollick' (born
19 May 1945) is a British businessman with
media interests, and a noted supporter of the
Labour party.
Education and early career
Hollick was educated at
Taunton's Grammar School,
Southampton, and then read Politics, Psychology and Sociology at the
University of Nottingham. He joined
Hambros Bank as a graduate trainee in
1967 and rapidly gained a reputation as a financier and a dealmaker, becoming the bank's youngest ever director in
1973.
Vavasseur and MAI
The next year Hollick was parachuted as chief executive into
JH Vavasseur Group, a failing moneybroker caught up in the
1973-
4 secondary banking crisis. By
1978 the Vavasseur mechant bank was back in the black, and Hollick was building it into a successful media company, renaming the group Mills & Allen International (MAI) after taking over advertising billboard company Mills and Allen. The group continued to grow with fingers in a number of pies through the
1980s, expanding into market research and business information services, and buying the
National Opinion Polls (NOP) group in
1989 from the
Daily Mail and General Trust.
MAI moved into television in
1993 when its subsidiary
Meridian Broadcasting won the
ITV franchise for South and South-East England. The following year it bought
Anglia Television for £292m, and in
1995 a 14.8% share in
Yorkshire-
Tyne Tees, and was a major shareholder in the consortium that was granted the franchise for
Channel 5.
United News and Media
In
March 1996 the group merged with
United Newspapers, publishers of the ''
Daily Express'', ''
Daily Star'', and a string of local newspapers, to form
United News and Media, an international media group with revenues of £2.3 billion and 16,000 employees. Many thought Hollick would meet his match in
Lord Stevens of Ludgate, proprietor of United; but it was Stevens who was sidelined as Hollick became chief executive, and within 18 months the ''Express'' had undergone a radical shift of political affiliation, putting behind it generations long dyed-in-the-wool support of the Conservative party to become an enthusiastic cheerleader for
Tony Blair's
New Labour.
UNM was required to sell its stake in Yorkshire-Tyne Tees as part of the merger, giving
Granada control, but the next year it was permitted to add a third ITV franchise to its holdings,
HTV, the broadcaster for Wales and the West Country. As ITV continued to consolidate, Hollick proposed to take over
Carlton in
2000, which would have made him the dominant player on the network. But his plans were blocked by the then Secretary of State at the DTI,
Stephen Byers, who ruled that the merger would only be acceptable if Hollick gave up the prized Meridian franchise – making the deal pointless. Unable to proceed, Hollick sold the three ITV franchises to Granada in
July 2000 for £1.75 billion. The UNM share price dived 13% on the news, but history has since revealed that Hollick sold out right at the top of the market. Ironically, the last restrictions on ITV company joint ownership were lifted by the
Communications Act 2003, and in
February 2004 Granada and Carlton merged to form a single entity
ITV plc controlling all of the ITV franchises in England and Wales.
Other parts of UNM were also disposed of advantageously, including the demerging of MAI's original securities business in
1998 as Garban, which subsequently became
ICAP; the sale in
1998 of United's Provincial Newspapers including the
Yorkshire Post to
Johnston Press; the controversial sale of Express Newspapers in
2000 to
Richard Desmond, owner of a stable of pornographic magazines; the sale of the NOP World market research business to GfK in
2005; and the sale of United's 35% stake in Channel 5 to
RTL in
2005.
UNM, renamed
United Business Media PLC in
2000, is now strongly focussed on business-to-business publications, information services and exhibitions. Principal subsidiaries are
PR Newswire, acquired by United in
1982, and
CMP Media, acquired in
1999.
Current activities and other interests
Hollick retired as CEO of United Business Media in April 2005 at the age of 60, and promptly became a managing partner at
private equity firm
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, focussing on the media and financial services sectors. This led to speculation that KKR might launch a bid for ITV. In 2006 he was appointed to the supervisory board of media conglomerate
VNU, after KKR and
Blackstone Group won a difficult takeover battle. He is also the chairman of
SBS Broadcasting Group, taken over by KKR and
Permira in August 2005. He is also a director of
Diageo PLC,
Honeywell International, and Chairman of the
South Bank Centre arts complex in London.
Other directorships Hollick has held include Hambros Bank Limited, 1973-96;
Shepperton Studios (chairman), 1976-79;
National Bus Company Ltd, 1984-91; Department of Applied Economics,
Cambridge University, 1988-95;
Logica plc, 1987-92;
British Aerospace plc, 1992-97.
Hollick has been a longtime supporter and donor to the
Labour party, and was one of the founding backers of the
New Labour think tank the
Institute for Public Policy Research. For a time after the
1997 Election he served as a special advisor to
Margaret Beckett and
Peter Mandelson at the
Department for Trade and Industry. He is a supporter of the 2020 Vision political campaign run by
Charles Clarke and
Alan Milburn, and currently co-ordinating funds for the campaign.
He was created a
life peer on 20 June
1991, as 'Baron Hollick', of
Notting Hill in the
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. He is married to
Susan Mary Woodford-Hollick and has three daughters.
External links
★
Hollick makes his move, ''BBC News'', 26 November 1999
★
Is Carlton United a winning team?, ''BBC News'', 26 November 1999
★
Factsheet, Justpeople.com, 9 February 2000
★
Lord Hollick To Be New Chairman Of The South Bank Board,
Department for Culture, Media and Sport, February 2002
★
Hollick's non-United future, ''
The Times'', 3 September 2004
★
Interview, ''
Evening Standard'', 8 September 2004
★
Hollick refuses to hand back £250,000 despite investor vote, ''
The Guardian'', 13 May 2005
★
United Group: A Chronology, ketupa.net
★
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts signs up Hollick as it targets UK media, ''
The Times'', 13 January 2005
★
ITV may be on menu for Hollick, ''
Daily Mail'', 13 January 2005
★
ITV gains on bid speculation, ''Digital TV'', 18 January 2005
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