Gerald Corbett
Encyclopedia
Gerald Corbett is a businessman in the United Kingdom
. Since 2005 he has been Chairman of SSL International plc and Britvic plc. Britvic is one of the two leading soft drinks companies in Britain whose major brands include Robinsons, Tango, Pepsi, Fruit Shoot and J20. SSL International is the rapidly growing international consumer healthcare group whose major brands Durex and Scholl are sold in over 50 countries with manufacturing facilities primarily in India, China and Thailand. Gerald is also Chairman of Moneysupermarket.com, the leading price comparison website which floated in July 2007. He is Chairman of the Royal National Institute of the Deaf, the UK's largest Charity representing the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. He is also a Non Executive Director of the investment bank and stock broking business, Numis Securities. He is the High Sheriff of Hertfordshire for 2010/11 and is a member of the council of the High Sheriffs Association.
Described by David Freud
in his book "Freud in the City" as "immensely approachable, a short and jovial figure, full of impromptu quips relayed to the accompaniment of short, barks of laughter", he has been a director of eleven Public Companies
- four of them as Chairman, but he is most notable for once being the chief executive of Railtrack
.
and Harvard
business school
s before joining Boston Consulting Group
, which advises on corporate strategy, in the mid-70s. In 1982, he joined electrical retailer Dixons
, where he became group Financial Controller and Corporate Finance
Director.
He left after five years to be Group Finance Director at international building materials firm Redland. In 1993, he became Group Finance Director of Grand Metropolitan
, the food and drink giant. In February 1996 in The Mail on Sunday
, Patience Wheatcroft
identified Corbett as one of business' "high powered hot shots" who would lead British business into the new millennium.
When "Grand Met" merged with Guinness
to form Diageo
, he lost his job to his counterpart at Guinness.
In summer 1997, he was appointed Chief Executive of Railtrack
, which he left in November 2000.
, which was subsequently delivered on budget and on time. The Financial Times
on 12 June 1998 described Corbett as a "hard nosed leader of men and a tough negotiator." By the year 2000, 20% more people were travelling by rail than under old BR.
At the time of his appointment, Corbett admitted to journalists that he had no experience whatever of the industry. In September 1997, three weeks after his appointment, a First Great Western
express train from Swansea
collided with a freight train
at Southall
, West London, killing seven passengers. Twenty seven months later, in October 1999, another Intercity train
collided with a commuter train
near Paddington
, killing 31 people. It was Britain's worst rail disaster in a decade. Nevertheless, Corbett survived the pressure to resign from his job. Alastair Morton
Chairman of the Strategic Rail Authority
said in a speech the week following the crash that "Railtrack should be grateful for the leadership Gerald Corbett has shown in the aftermath of the crash".
Labour politicians continually fanned the flames attacking Railtrack. Corbett who became the mouthpiece of the privatised railway, was frequently on TV and Radio defending his company.
In early 2000, he made a public apology on the BBC's Today programme
on behalf of Railtrack: "The work we have done has..... been truly dreadful and it's largely down to us and our contractors. We are trying to do a hell of a lot of work and the way we have been doing it has not been good enough."
A year after the Paddington crash, in October 2000, a train from London
to Leeds
derailed
at Hatfield
, resulting in four deaths. Corbett’s resignation was initially rejected by the Railtrack board following wide public support. The Times Leader of 19 October, titled "Staying Power", stated that his departure would be "a disaster for Britain's railways". The same day on the BBC 7 o'clock news Corbett identified the Railways problem as its fragmentation. The railway had been "ripped apart by privatisation". He urged Government and regulators to "think the unthinkable". But he eventually left with a compensation package estimated to be worth £1.3m in total (of which £900,000 was his accrued pension benefit). Christian Wolmar
, the well known transport journalist, wrote in his book “On the wrong line”, that “Corbett’s departure just made things worse for Railtrack. He was one of the railway's few class acts” .
Corbett was personified on the London stage in David Hare's "The Permanent Way" and in the television film "Derailed". These dramatisations showed the private tension beneath the public face and noted that Corbett had his own share of personal tragedy. His father was killed at an early age by a drunk driver in a car accident. Corbett is married to an artist. Together they have four children, and he himself is one of five brothers.
More recently, Corbett's time at the Railways has begun to be seen in a different light. In July 2007 in an article in the Daily Telegraph
, George Muir, director general of the Association of Train Operating Companies pointed out that Network Rail's delays were still 24% worse than the performance achieved by Railtrack under Corbett in 1999/2000. He said "Gerald Corbett, who everyone was so rude about, had fewer delays in 1999 than Network Rail
has now." He went on to say that he was fed up with Network Rail's excuses as "they had been at it for 5 years" and that they had "very significant advantages compared to Railtrack, "more money" and that "delay minutes should now be well below those of 1999/2000". He pointed out that in the same period, the train operators had reduced their delays by 28%.
. Once this was completed in August 2001, he remained on the board as Chairman.
In October 2003, he was appointed non-executive chairman of Health Club Holdings, the Holmes Place fitness clubs business, which he stepped down from at the end of 2005 following his appointment as Chairman of soft drinks company Britvic
, to oversee its flotation in December 2005 on the London Stock Exchange
. Since floatation Britvic's profits have doubled, the business has expanded into Ireland and France and the share price is over twice the floatation price.
He has also been a non-executive director
of Burmah-Castrol plc
and the MEPC
property group.
In July 2005 he was appointed as Chairman of SSL International
, the company that manufactures and sells internationally Durex
contraceptives and Scholl
footwear and footcare products. In the last five years SSL's profits have trebled as the business has expanded into Russia, the Ukraine and China, benefitting also from major new product development. On 20 July 2010 the SSL Board accepted a £2.5 billion offer for the company from Reckitt Benckiser plc. Over the 5 year period this represents an improvement in shareholder value of almost 400 per cent making it one of the best performing shares on the London market over that time period. The Lex column in the Financial Times described the price as "gutsy at twenty times ebitda" on 22 July. Nils Prately in the Guardian said that "SSL was the clear winner of the deal". Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail wrote that "it was a fairy tale for SSL shareholders"
He stepped down as chairman of Woolworths at the AGM in June 2007 after completing his second three year term. He was appointed chairman of Moneysupermarket.com in July 2007, the price comparison website which floated on the London Stock Exchange in the same month.
He became Chair of the Royal National Institute for Deaf People
on 26 October 2007.
Between 2004 and 2010 he was a non-executive director of Greencore Group plc
, the Irish food company headquartered in Dublin. In May 2009 he was appointed a director of Numis Plc, the investment banking and stockbroking business based in the city of London. He was Chairman of the Governors of Abbot's Hill School
between 1997–2002 and has been a governor of Luton University. In 2010 he served as High Sheriff of Hertfordshire
In the recent past Corbett has kept out of the public eye, focusing on his Chairmanships at SSL International Plc, Britvic Plc, Moneysupermarket.com Plc and the Royal National Institute for Deaf People.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. Since 2005 he has been Chairman of SSL International plc and Britvic plc. Britvic is one of the two leading soft drinks companies in Britain whose major brands include Robinsons, Tango, Pepsi, Fruit Shoot and J20. SSL International is the rapidly growing international consumer healthcare group whose major brands Durex and Scholl are sold in over 50 countries with manufacturing facilities primarily in India, China and Thailand. Gerald is also Chairman of Moneysupermarket.com, the leading price comparison website which floated in July 2007. He is Chairman of the Royal National Institute of the Deaf, the UK's largest Charity representing the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. He is also a Non Executive Director of the investment bank and stock broking business, Numis Securities. He is the High Sheriff of Hertfordshire for 2010/11 and is a member of the council of the High Sheriffs Association.
Described by David Freud
David Freud
David Anthony Freud, Baron Freud is a British journalist, businessman and welfare adviser and is a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Work and Pensions...
in his book "Freud in the City" as "immensely approachable, a short and jovial figure, full of impromptu quips relayed to the accompaniment of short, barks of laughter", he has been a director of eleven Public Companies
Public company
This is not the same as a Government-owned corporation.A public company or publicly traded company is a limited liability company that offers its securities for sale to the general public, typically through a stock exchange, or through market makers operating in over the counter markets...
- four of them as Chairman, but he is most notable for once being the chief executive of Railtrack
Railtrack
Railtrack was a group of companies that owned the track, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the stations of the British railway system from its formation in April 1994 until 2002...
.
Early career
After studying history at Cambridge University, where he was a foundation scholar, he attended LondonLondon Business School
London Business School is an international business school and a constituent college of the federal University of London, located in central London, beside Regent's Park...
and Harvard
Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and is widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. The school offers the world's largest full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, and many executive...
business school
Business school
A business school is a university-level institution that confers degrees in Business Administration. It teaches topics such as accounting, administration, economics, entrepreneurship, finance, information systems, marketing, organizational behavior, public relations, strategy, human resource...
s before joining Boston Consulting Group
Boston Consulting Group
The Boston Consulting Group is a global management consulting firm with offices in 42 countries. It is recognized as one of the most prestigious management consulting firms in the world. It is one of only three companies to appear in the top 15 of Fortunes "Best Companies to Work For" report for...
, which advises on corporate strategy, in the mid-70s. In 1982, he joined electrical retailer Dixons
Dixons
Dixons is an online retailer in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is owned by Dixons Retail plc.With its origins in a photographic shop opened by Charles Kalms, the chain had a store in most towns and cities across the UK and Ireland...
, where he became group Financial Controller and Corporate Finance
Corporate finance
Corporate finance is the area of finance dealing with monetary decisions that business enterprises make and the tools and analysis used to make these decisions. The primary goal of corporate finance is to maximize shareholder value while managing the firm's financial risks...
Director.
He left after five years to be Group Finance Director at international building materials firm Redland. In 1993, he became Group Finance Director of Grand Metropolitan
Grand Metropolitan
Grand Metropolitan plc is a former United Kingdom-based company operating hotels, holiday centres, entertainment centres, public houses and casinos...
, the food and drink giant. In February 1996 in The Mail on Sunday
The Mail on Sunday
The Mail on Sunday is a British conservative newspaper, currently published in a tabloid format. First published in 1982 by Lord Rothermere, it became Britain's biggest-selling Sunday newspaper following the closing of The News of the World in July 2011...
, Patience Wheatcroft
Patience Wheatcroft
Patience Wheatcroft, Baroness Wheatcroft is a British journalist who was editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal Europe. She left this role upon becoming a peer....
identified Corbett as one of business' "high powered hot shots" who would lead British business into the new millennium.
When "Grand Met" merged with Guinness
Guinness
Guinness is a popular Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate, Dublin. Guinness is directly descended from the porter style that originated in London in the early 18th century and is one of the most successful beer brands worldwide, brewed in almost...
to form Diageo
Diageo
Diageo plc is a global alcoholic beverages company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest producer of spirits and a major producer of beer and wine....
, he lost his job to his counterpart at Guinness.
In summer 1997, he was appointed Chief Executive of Railtrack
Railtrack
Railtrack was a group of companies that owned the track, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the stations of the British railway system from its formation in April 1994 until 2002...
, which he left in November 2000.
Railtrack
Railtrack was the most controversial of the Conservative government privatisations. The railway was dismembered into over 100 different pieces of which by far the largest was Railtrack which owned and operated the infrastructure. The privatisation was bitterly opposed by Labour who maintained their hostility to the company throughout its existence. Yet Railtrack's annual reports and in a series of regulatory submissions and documents published by the office of the Rail Regulator, under Corbett, train punctuality improved to levels not seen before, investment rose, profits increased, the share price went up and the safety record steadily improved. 1998 was the first year since 1902 in which no passenger died in a train crash. In 1998 Railtrack rescued the Channel Tunnel rail linkChannel Tunnel Rail Link
High Speed 1 , officially known as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and originally as the Continental Main Line , is a high-speed railway line running from London through Kent to the British end of the Channel Tunnel.The line was built to carry international passenger traffic from the United Kingdom...
, which was subsequently delivered on budget and on time. The Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
on 12 June 1998 described Corbett as a "hard nosed leader of men and a tough negotiator." By the year 2000, 20% more people were travelling by rail than under old BR.
At the time of his appointment, Corbett admitted to journalists that he had no experience whatever of the industry. In September 1997, three weeks after his appointment, a First Great Western
First Great Western
First Great Western is the operating name of First Greater Western Ltd, a British train operating company owned by FirstGroup that serves Greater London, the South East, South West and West Midlands regions of England, and South Wales....
express train from Swansea
Swansea
Swansea is a coastal city and county in Wales. Swansea is in the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan. Situated on the sandy South West Wales coast, the county area includes the Gower Peninsula and the Lliw uplands...
collided with a freight train
Southall rail crash
The Southall rail crash was an accident on the British railway system that occurred on 19 September 1997, on the Great Western Main Line at Southall, west London. Seven people were killed and 139 injured...
at Southall
Southall
Southall is a large suburban district of west London, England, and part of the London Borough of Ealing. It is situated west of Charing Cross. Neighbouring places include Yeading, Hayes, Hanwell, Heston, Hounslow, Greenford and Northolt...
, West London, killing seven passengers. Twenty seven months later, in October 1999, another Intercity train
Inter-city rail
Inter-city rail services are express passenger train services that cover longer distances than commuter or regional trains.There is no precise definition of inter-city rail. Its meaning may vary from country to country...
collided with a commuter train
Ladbroke Grove rail crash
The Ladbroke Grove Rail Crash was a rail accident which occurred on 5 October 1999 at Ladbroke Grove, London, England. Thirty-one people were killed and more than 520 injured...
near Paddington
Paddington
Paddington is a district within the City of Westminster, in central London, England. Formerly a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965...
, killing 31 people. It was Britain's worst rail disaster in a decade. Nevertheless, Corbett survived the pressure to resign from his job. Alastair Morton
Alastair Morton
Sir Alastair Morton was Chief Executive of Eurotunnel and Chairman of the Strategic Rail Authority and an industrialist of considerable achievements and renown....
Chairman of the Strategic Rail Authority
Strategic Rail Authority
In existence from 2001 to 2006, the Strategic Rail Authority was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom set up under the Transport Act 2000 to provide strategic direction for the railway industry....
said in a speech the week following the crash that "Railtrack should be grateful for the leadership Gerald Corbett has shown in the aftermath of the crash".
Labour politicians continually fanned the flames attacking Railtrack. Corbett who became the mouthpiece of the privatised railway, was frequently on TV and Radio defending his company.
In early 2000, he made a public apology on the BBC's Today programme
Today programme
Today is BBC Radio 4's long-running early morning news and current affairs programme, now broadcast from 6.00 am to 9.00 am Monday to Friday, and 7.00 am to 9.00 am on Saturdays. It is also the most popular programme on Radio 4 and one of the BBC's most popular programmes across its radio networks...
on behalf of Railtrack: "The work we have done has..... been truly dreadful and it's largely down to us and our contractors. We are trying to do a hell of a lot of work and the way we have been doing it has not been good enough."
A year after the Paddington crash, in October 2000, a train from London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
derailed
Hatfield rail crash
The Hatfield rail crash was a railway accident on 17 October 2000, at Hatfield, Hertfordshire, UK. Although the accident killed fewer than other accidents, Hatfield exposed the major stewardship shortcomings of the privatised national railway infrastructure company Railtrack and the failings of...
at Hatfield
Hatfield, Hertfordshire
Hatfield is a town and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England in the borough of Welwyn Hatfield. It has a population of 29,616, and is of Saxon origin. Hatfield House, the home of the Marquess of Salisbury, is the nucleus of the old town...
, resulting in four deaths. Corbett’s resignation was initially rejected by the Railtrack board following wide public support. The Times Leader of 19 October, titled "Staying Power", stated that his departure would be "a disaster for Britain's railways". The same day on the BBC 7 o'clock news Corbett identified the Railways problem as its fragmentation. The railway had been "ripped apart by privatisation". He urged Government and regulators to "think the unthinkable". But he eventually left with a compensation package estimated to be worth £1.3m in total (of which £900,000 was his accrued pension benefit). Christian Wolmar
Christian Wolmar
Christian Wolmar is a British journalist, author, and railway historian of Swedish and Russian descent. He is best known for his books and commentary on transport, especially as a pundit on Britain's railway network, and was named Transport Journalist of the Year in the National Transport Awards in...
, the well known transport journalist, wrote in his book “On the wrong line”, that “Corbett’s departure just made things worse for Railtrack. He was one of the railway's few class acts” .
Corbett was personified on the London stage in David Hare's "The Permanent Way" and in the television film "Derailed". These dramatisations showed the private tension beneath the public face and noted that Corbett had his own share of personal tragedy. His father was killed at an early age by a drunk driver in a car accident. Corbett is married to an artist. Together they have four children, and he himself is one of five brothers.
More recently, Corbett's time at the Railways has begun to be seen in a different light. In July 2007 in an article in the Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, George Muir, director general of the Association of Train Operating Companies pointed out that Network Rail's delays were still 24% worse than the performance achieved by Railtrack under Corbett in 1999/2000. He said "Gerald Corbett, who everyone was so rude about, had fewer delays in 1999 than Network Rail
Network Rail
Network Rail is the government-created owner and operator of most of the rail infrastructure in Great Britain .; it is not responsible for railway infrastructure in Northern Ireland...
has now." He went on to say that he was fed up with Network Rail's excuses as "they had been at it for 5 years" and that they had "very significant advantages compared to Railtrack, "more money" and that "delay minutes should now be well below those of 1999/2000". He pointed out that in the same period, the train operators had reduced their delays by 28%.
After Railtrack
In March 2001, he was back at the helm of another major company, Woolworths, appointed to oversee the demerger of Woolworths Group from KingfisherKingfisher plc
Kingfisher plc is a multinational retailing company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the largest home improvement retailer in Europe and the third-largest in the world...
. Once this was completed in August 2001, he remained on the board as Chairman.
In October 2003, he was appointed non-executive chairman of Health Club Holdings, the Holmes Place fitness clubs business, which he stepped down from at the end of 2005 following his appointment as Chairman of soft drinks company Britvic
Britvic
Britvic plc is a British producer of soft drinks. It is the number two soft drinks producer in the UK. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index...
, to oversee its flotation in December 2005 on the London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
. Since floatation Britvic's profits have doubled, the business has expanded into Ireland and France and the share price is over twice the floatation price.
He has also been a non-executive director
Non-executive director
A non-executive director or outside director is a member of the board of directors of a company who does not form part of the executive management team. He or she is not an employee of the company or affiliated with it in any other way...
of Burmah-Castrol plc
Castrol
Castrol is a brand of industrial and automotive lubricants which is applied to a large range of oils, greases and similar products for most lubrication applications...
and the MEPC
MEPC plc
MEPC plc is a leading British-based property investment and development business. It is headquartered in London. It used to be listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index...
property group.
In July 2005 he was appointed as Chairman of SSL International
SSL International
SSL International plc was a British manufacturer of healthcare products. Its best known brands were Durex and Scholl; other significant brands were Sauber and Mister Baby. The company's name was an abbreviation of Seton Scholl London International, its predecessor businesses. Since November 2010,...
, the company that manufactures and sells internationally Durex
Durex
Durex is the trademarked name for a range of condoms that used to be made by British company SSL International. This company was sold to Reckitt Benckiser in July 2010....
contraceptives and Scholl
Scholl
There are several people named Scholl:* Andreas Scholl , German countertenor, brother of Elisabeth* Elisabeth Scholl , German soprano, sister of Andreas...
footwear and footcare products. In the last five years SSL's profits have trebled as the business has expanded into Russia, the Ukraine and China, benefitting also from major new product development. On 20 July 2010 the SSL Board accepted a £2.5 billion offer for the company from Reckitt Benckiser plc. Over the 5 year period this represents an improvement in shareholder value of almost 400 per cent making it one of the best performing shares on the London market over that time period. The Lex column in the Financial Times described the price as "gutsy at twenty times ebitda" on 22 July. Nils Prately in the Guardian said that "SSL was the clear winner of the deal". Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail wrote that "it was a fairy tale for SSL shareholders"
He stepped down as chairman of Woolworths at the AGM in June 2007 after completing his second three year term. He was appointed chairman of Moneysupermarket.com in July 2007, the price comparison website which floated on the London Stock Exchange in the same month.
He became Chair of the Royal National Institute for Deaf People
Royal National Institute for Deaf People
Action on Hearing Loss, formerly known as The Royal National Institute for Deaf People is a charitable organization working on behalf of the UK's 9 million deaf and hard of hearing people. The head office of RNID is in Islington, Central London . Its President is Lord Ashley of Stoke. The Chief...
on 26 October 2007.
Between 2004 and 2010 he was a non-executive director of Greencore Group plc
Greencore
Greencore Group plc is a food company in Ireland.It was established by the Irish Government in 1991 to take over Irish Sugar, the nationalised sugar production company. 55% of the group was listed on the Irish Stock Exchange that year, over the years additional placements have led to almost 100%...
, the Irish food company headquartered in Dublin. In May 2009 he was appointed a director of Numis Plc, the investment banking and stockbroking business based in the city of London. He was Chairman of the Governors of Abbot's Hill School
Abbot's Hill School
Abbot's Hill School is an independent girls' school in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom.-Abbot's Hill House:It had been the home of John Dickinson who was his own architect in its building, just east of his paper mill, Nash Mills. Construction was commenced in 1836...
between 1997–2002 and has been a governor of Luton University. In 2010 he served as High Sheriff of Hertfordshire
High Sheriff of Hertfordshire
The High Sheriff of Hertfordshire was an ancient High Sheriff title originating in the time of the Angles, not long after the invasion of the Kingdom of England, which was in existence for around a thousand years...
In the recent past Corbett has kept out of the public eye, focusing on his Chairmanships at SSL International Plc, Britvic Plc, Moneysupermarket.com Plc and the Royal National Institute for Deaf People.