Michael Anthony Ashcroft, Baron Ashcroft, (born 4 March 1946) is a British-Belizean businessman, pollster and politician. He is a former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. Ashcroft founded Michael A. Ashcroft Associates in 1972 and was the 132nd richest person in the UK, as ranked by the Sunday Times Rich List 2021, with an estimated fortune of £1.257 billion.
He was created a life peer in 2000, and sat on the Conservative benches of the House of Lords until resigning in 2015. The Cabinet Office stated that he would take up permanent residence in the UK for tax purposes, but it was reported a decade later that he had not done so.
Ashcroft holds dual British and Belizean nationality, and is a belonger of the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Early life and education
Michael Anthony Ashcroft was born in Chichester, West Sussex. His father, Eric, was a British colonial civil servant; Ashcroft spent some of his early years in British Honduras (now Belize) and Malawi.
He was educated at Norwich School, Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe, and Mid-Essex Technical College (now Anglia Ruskin University), where he obtained a Higher National Diploma in Business studies.Fran Abrams. "Ashcroft to give £5m to his old college". The Independent. 25 May 2000. Retrieved 20 July 2011.
Business career Following a period in Belize after completing his education, Ashcroft returned to hitchhike around Europe, and then for a short period of time became the manager of a rock and roll band.
In 1967, Ashcroft joined Carreras Tobacco as a management trainee. He left Carreras in 1969, joining Pritchard Services Group, a cleaning and business services company, after several months unemployed. In 1972, at the age of 26, he started his own business, Michael A. Ashcroft Associates, which he used to launch several profitable acquisitions.
Acquisitions and divestments
Ashcroft's first acquisition was Uni-Kleen—a loss-making cleaning company with 1,000 employees, which he purchased for just £1 in 1974, with a £15,000 bank loan (). He worked to turn the company around, selling it just three years later for £1.3 million."Ashcroft: The Tories' troublesome tycoon". BBC News. 31 March 2000. Retrieved 12 April 2008.
On exiting Uni-Kleen in 1977, his next purchase was Hawley Goodall, another poorly performing company, this time in camping equipment manufacture. Ashcroft used Hawley to make a series of acquisitions, transforming the company into a business services group, ranging from janitorial services for hospitals and offices, to car auction services, and later with a focus on the security services industry. Through the sale of the car auctions division to the fast-expanding British Car Auctions (BCA), he formed a lifelong friendship with David Wickins, whom he would later help take a majority stake in Lotus Cars, as well as provide finance for other joint-ventures. By 1981, Hawley had made its first acquisitions in the United States, and its total revenues had grown to $27 million.
By early 1983, Hawley had built up a 20% stake in pharmaceutical packaging manufacturer Cope Allman. Ashcroft offered to increase his stake to 29.9%, just below the 30% level at which a formal bid for the entire company must be launched. Ashcroft and Cope Allman fought bitterly over the purchase share price and current holdings, with Cope Allman reporting Ashcroft and Wickins to the Takeover panel, after discovering that BCA had built up a 13.5% in the company. But the takeover panel found that Ashcroft and Wickins were operating independently, so Hawley was able to increase its holding to 29.9%. At this point the combined holdings of Hawley and BCA in Cope Allman amounted to 43.5%, giving them the power to introduce sweeping changes without launching a full bid. Cope Allman was eventually sold to an MBO backed by Hawley and financed by Bain Capital, and then sold to Bowater in 1992 in a complex swap of assets with ADT/Hawley.
In 1985 Ashcroft and Wickins bought car sales dealership Henlys Group via a Canadian-registered company, Mipec. Controlled by Ashcroft's Hawley Goodall, Henlys was merged with the already-owned funeral hearse maker Coleman Milne to form a motoring division. In 1989, Hawley Goodall sold its motoring division consisting of Henlys and Coleman Milne to the Plaxton Group, the bus and coach manufacturer based in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.
1987 was a key year for Hawley. In the early part of the year, it bought Crime Control Inc. based in Indianapolis, for $50 million, placing the company in fourth place in the U.S. security market. Later in the year it bought ADT Security Services, the largest electronic security company in the United States. This purchase transformed Hawley into the leading security services business in the United States, and resulted in the majority of its revenues coming from the North American market. As a result of the acquisition, Bermuda-registered Hawley changed its name to ADT Inc. and decided to refocus its business around security services. At the end of 1987, the company sold its North American-based facility services business to Denmark's ISS A/S.
In 1987, Ashcroft bought out the existing shareholders of Wickins' BCA via Hawley Goodall. Based at Blackbushe Airport to allow Wickins access to his treasured aviation division, which flew both Jet Ranger helicopters and Beechcraft King Air turbo prop aircraft, Ashcroft, who has a disliking for such flippant expenditure, immediately sold off the aircraft. Wickins joined the board of Hawley Goodall, remaining there until the Tyco takeover. He retired from BCA in 1990. In 1995, to allow for the Tyco transaction, the group decided to divest itself of BCA. The residual North American arm was sold to trade buyers, while the European arm was sold to a consortium of some 40 private investors, including Ashcroft via his Belize-based investment company. In September 2006, BCA was bought by the UK-based investment banking arm of private bank Samuel Montagu & Co., a division of HSBC, personally netting Ashcroft over £200 million.
In 1997, ADT was sold by a reverse takeover to US conglomerate Tyco International for $6.7 billion, allowing Tyco to become tax-efficient.
Ashcroft disposed of large amounts of the Tyco stock which he had acquired as a result of the sale of ADT, stating that he needed the capital to diversify into other things and that he never retained a substantial stake in any enterprise which he did not control. Ashcroft nevertheless continued as a non-executive director of Tyco, a role he still held in 2002 when Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski was arrested in New York in connection with personal tax offences. Unease had already been expressed at Tyco at some of Kozlowski's corporate decisions and Ashcroft was amongst the directors who appointed lawyer David Boies to investigate irregularities in the company.
Belize and cross holdings Ashcroft has close business and other connections with the Commonwealth country of Belize, and served as the country's ambassador to the United Nations between 1998 and 2000. In 2009, the Prime Minister of Belize Dean Barrow told its parliament:
Barrow also warned David Cameron that relations with the United Kingdom would be damaged if Ashcroft were given a senior position in government. In 1984 Ashcroft formed Belize Holdings (BHI).
In 1987, BHI led the formation of Belize Bank Holdings (BBH), which took control of Belize Bank from the Royal Bank of Canada. Belize Bank has become the country's largest financial institution, controlling some 50 per cent of the market. BBH developed local and international interests in facilities services, finance and telecommunications. Belize Bank itself formerly held a majority stake in Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL), until it was nationalised by the Government of Belize.
Other business activities Ashcroft also has significant interests in the following companies quoted on the Alternative Investment Market: Restore plc, WeAre20:20 and Impellam Group.
Having attempted a takeover of Corporate Services Group in 1999, in June 2006 he increased his stake to 28.5%, prompting speculation that he might make an offer for the remaining shares in the company. In May 2008 the merger of Carlisle Group and Corporate Services Group to form Impellam Group was announced.Carlisle Group included the brands Recruit PLC and Tate. include Carlisle Group and Corporate Services Group merged to form Impellam Group (Recruiter)
In September 2007, Ashcroft agreed to the sale of AIM listed cleaning services supplier OneSource. Based mainly in the United States, it was the old North American cleaning business of ISS that Ashcroft had sold to them when refocusing Hawley in 1987. Bought in 1997 for $1, he agreed the sale of the company at a value of £179m.
In March 2006, he became the major shareholder in English professional football club Watford, owning up to 42% of the club's shares. In September 2006, he accepted a bid for British Car Auctions (BCA) worth £450m, netting him a personal gain of £200m.
Ashcroft has a 72.3% stake in English sparkling wine producer Gusbourne, which he acquired in 2013 for £7 million.
Personal life
In April 1972, Ashcroft married Wendy Mahoney. They had two sons and one daughter; the marriage was dissolved in 1984. His second marriage in 1986 was to Susan Anstey. The couple have homes in London, Maidenhead in Berkshire, and Belize.
Ashcroft owns a Dassault Falcon 7X, registration VP-BZE, via his Bermudian registered company, Flying Lion. On 27 December 2017, while parked at the Malta International Airport, the plane careened off the apron, smashed into a fence and a road before crashing into an office building. The incident is believed to have occurred after the plane's wheel chocks were blown away due to strong winds. No injuries were reported but the plane suffered extensive damage.
He owns two yachts, both registered in Belize: Lady M – built in the Netherlands Atlantic Goose – built originally for Sir Donald Gosling as Brave Goose in 1987 by Tough Brothers of Teddington, on the River Thames.
Politics Conservative Party In the UK, he was a major donor to and Treasurer of the Conservative Party from 1998 to 2001, under William Hague. His tenure was marked by a number of controversies: he was seen to pay little UK income tax because of his domicile in Belize, and he was at the centre of a debate about openness and accountability of political funding. Unsubstantiated speculation about his business affairs was concluded when he pursued a libel action against The Times. This was settled on 9 December 1999, when The Times issued a front-page statement saying "The Times is pleased to confirm that it has no evidence that Mr Ashcroft or any of his companies have ever been suspected of money-laundering or drug-related crimes... Litigation between the parties has been settled to mutual satisfaction, with each side bearing its own costs."
In 2004, he clashed with Conservative leader Michael Howard when he offered a £2m donation on the condition that it should go to his specified candidates rather than into general Conservative Central Office funds. Ashcroft stated in 2005: "I much prefer to be involved, to make sure that my investment is wisely placed."
In December 2005, he was appointed Deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. During the "Cash for Peerages" controversy, on 31 March 2006 Ashcroft was named by the Conservative Party as having lent it £3.6m.