What to do next?
MBOs were a new phenomenon. I was aware I had to do two things;
1. Obtain agreement in principle from BL to attempt a buyout and gain permission to disclose confidential commercially sensitive information to third parties, such as financial institutions and advisors.
2. Obtain financial backing from a bank, equity investor, ourselves, family, friends…where to start?
I was aware the latter was not going to be easy. BL was the butt of jokes nationally. It operated in a goldfish bowl and some bad news story appeared daily in the tabloids.
Decades of strikes, poor product quality, over-manning, low productivity, the need for taxpayer rescue, years of additional handouts and failure to become profitable, had not only damaged BL and its brands, but also the UK motor industry as a whole in its wake.
Reputations and standings were in shreds. Back then and for years after, there were those within BL and its successors, who pointed fingers squarely at ‘the press’ and the media in general.
In my view then and now, the press/media were merely a mirror. The view that it was the ‘press’ was held by many loyal hard working BL employees at all levels. People with great skill and integrity. But such a sincere deeply held position has its dangers.
If THEY were to blame, then WE are not responsible. Them, not us. THEY must change, not US!
The consequence of this group mindset is ‘wait until they stop picking on us’. The outcome - the cycle continues. Again, in my opinion, the problem was a lack of leadership in BL for decades. Yes there were hundreds of senior managers and managers acting as leaders, but no real leaders.
At the top many who achieved high office were simply self-serving individuals. The big beasts, the 'heavy hitters', rose to the top. Corporate Man. The unions and politically motivated shop stewards, out to deliver a killer blow to the evils of capitalism were, at a minimum, a major irritant.
Their actions were a major distraction. Above all their antics of wildcat strikes, the quest for the oxygen of publicity to bring pressure on 'the management' to concede more pay for less work, higher grading and leap-frog pay disputes did irreparable damage to the standing of the business(s). The brands rapidly devalued, at a time when competition was getting stronger. Coupled to poor quality, horror reliability stories being reported, all made the job of surviving, growing and becoming self-sustaining doubly difficult. To escape all this, to be able to trade with non-BL OEMs looked like Eldorado to me!
Michael Edwards was handed a bucket of past its sell-by-date spaghetti to weave together into a harmonious functioning whole. He undoubtedly had leadership qualities in bounds, indeed charisma, but was he passionate about building the best motorcars in volume? He was the best in a long time. He was given the task by Maggie Thatcher to get BL fit enough in order to sell the government 99.997% stake in public ownership. Maggie was right "no government should be building vehicles”.
Once it was out of public ownership, it either stepped up the competitive plate or slid/crashed out of business. The market would decide if it was good enough to survive. The market I refer to is the vehicle buying market. The final result would be fair.
It was against the above ‘already listening’ that I would have to gain financial backing to buy part of BL whose main customer was. . . BL! No problem!?!