James Hanson, Baron Hanson
| The Lord Hanson | |
|---|---|
| Born | 20 January 1922 Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England |
| Died | 1 November 2004 (aged 82) Newbury, Berkshire, England |
| Occupation | Company director |
James Edward, Baron Hanson (20 January 1922 – 1 November 2004) was an English Conservative industrialist who built his businesses through the process of leveraged buyouts through Hanson plc.
Educated at Elland Grammar School near Halifax and at the short-lived Maiden Erlegh House School at Earley, formerly the home of Solly Joel, James Hanson served as a staff officer with 7th Battalion, the Duke of Wellington's Regiment before going into the family transport business. Lord Hanson and Gordon White (later Lord White of Hull) formed a partnership in the 1960s, and began a greetings card 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 1986 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 Group's subsidiaries, leaving him with a business that made an operating-profit margin of nearly 50%.
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