BOOTS chairman Sir Nigel Rudd greets me with a three-finger handshake and a sheaf of papers. He plonks the papers down on a table and points to a line with his middle finger (he lost his index finger in a shooting accident). “You interviewed me in 1994,” he says sternly. Oh-oh.
“And you described me, aged 47, as ‘disarmingly boyish’.”
His face breaks into a wicked grin. “So, how am I doing at 59? Still a bit . . . ”
Derby-born Rudd — a self-made millionaire who is now a deputy lieutenant of Derbyshire, no less — likes to surprise. That’s his style, as is his habit of meticulous preparation. Neat, chubby and, yes, a little bit boyish beneath his now-greying hair, he enjoys a joke, but underneath, he’s deadly serious.
That’s bolstered him through a long career as a veteran dealmaker, first at Williams, the conglomerate he built up from 1982 onwards, then over the past decade as a multiple chairman and non-executive director.
This year he found himself chairing no less than three listed companies — Boots, the glassmaker Pilkington and car dealer Pendragon — involved in protracted takeover negotiations. He also sits as deputy chairman of Barclays. How did he find the time? “Well, it helps to work with fantastic chief executives,” he beams, giving little away. Underneath, you suspect, the fiercely ambitious Rudd has been pushed to the limit.
But if he was under pressure, look at him now. Pendragon scooped up industry rival Reg Vardy before Easter. Pilkington was finally sold to the Japanese giant NSG in June, and last week Boots received the thumbs-up from shareholders for Rudd’s bold plan to merge it with the healthcare group Alliance UniChem. So far, so good.
Approval of the Boots merger proposal, initially greeted with scepticism, must be particularly gratifying. But Rudd, sitting in the retailer’s new corporate headquarters above its store in London’s Oxford Street, says he always knew the argument was winnable.
“I think initially people were surprised because the two companies are in different sectors — retail and healthcare. It took analysts time to digest.”
Eventually, he says, the logic became clear. “We knew the big issue would be the management structure and we’ve addressed that. I’ve made undertakings to shareholders I will stay for three years, and they believe I am strong enough to sort it out — not to sound pompous, of course.”
Of course. His dark eyes twinkle. Rudd, who left school at 16 to train as an accountant, has an unnerving habit of couching his boasts in self-deprecation — letting you know, but also saying he doesn’t take it that seriously.
Hence he’ll drop into conversation his nice houses in Derbyshire and Belgravia, his love of shooting, his devotion to the Conservative party, and his deputy lieutenantship.
And you can ask him: do all self-made men aspire to the lifestyle of aristocratic toffs? And he’ll laugh, and say, “Yeah, of course, some want to be aristocrats and others want to run football clubs.” If he ever invests in Derby County, he adds drily, he has given permission for others to shoot him.
He may need that sense of humour at Alliance Boots, where some still believe conflict is on the cards. Boots’ Nottingham base is preserved, but division of responsibilities looks uneasy.
In the new entity, Richard Baker, Boots’ 43-year-old chief executive, will run day-to-day business. Stefano Pessina, Alliance UniChem’s 64-year-old billionaire boss, will drive expansion. Both will report to Rudd. Can two into one go? Rudd waves it off. “You have got to understand that these two people don’t have big egos. Richard believes in doing the job, he doesn’t want to be in the press. Stefano may live in Monaco and have a big yacht but he’s not fighting for the microphone either.
“They both have a vision of this being a very large, UK-based pharma-retailing, health- and-beauty business, and they both are determined to make it happen.”
Rudd, with typical mischief, then compares Baker with the young boss of another FTSE retailer. “I mean, he just can’t wait to get to the microphone, can he?” Ouch. Rudd prides himself on his judgment of people, and cites that, and his numeracy, as the key factors in a successful business career.
The younger of two sons, he trained in accountancy only to satisfy his mother’s desire for financial stability — her family had lost their money in a Dublin bank crash, and his father, a weights and measures inspector, simply didn’t earn enough.
But Rudd switched to business as soon as he qualified. His ability to buy and turn round companies made Williams an admired conglomerate, operating in fire protection, security and building products. When the group demerged, Rudd looked for new diversions.
“I could have gone into venture capital, but I’d been a non-executive chairman at East Midlands Electricity and felt I was quite good at it — I made a conscious choice to go plural.”
It proved a good choice. Rudd is now in the top tier among captains of industry — connected, respected, and highly influential.
“Nigel has an extraordinary nose for business,” says Robert Swannell, deputy chairman of Citigroup Europe and a long-time Rudd adviser. “He sniffs out what’s important, doesn’t waste time on nonsense and his judgment on people is uncanny.”
That feel for people is not without controversy, though. As chairman, Rudd likes to appoint his own chief executive and the same advisers. He is also not slow to act if he thinks personalities don’t mix.
“Nigel likes chief executives who don’t run to him every five minutes,” says Stuart Chambers, Pilkington chief executive, “and he lets you know what he thinks of your team, but from a good base.”
Rudd’s experience as a non-executive at Barclays in the 1990s under chief executive Martin Taylor — whom he helped to oust — is vital. “There was war going on between various factions, and that was awful. You have to have a united board or you have nothing.”
Can a chairman be too powerful? He doesn’t blanch. “They can be if they only have one place to go. That’s why diversity is important. And I am very hands-off.”
Yet isn’t he always doing deals? “Look, I’m not a deal junkie. I have done three deals this year but that’s just how it happens. At Pilkington I was chairman for 10 years and we didn’t buy or sell anything.”
No regrets, in Pilkington’s case, about UK plc being sold on the cheap? “Yes, I do have some regrets, but at the end of the day I work for shareholders and our advisers said 165p was a good price for the business.”
And anyway, he says, in Britain we don’t sell our businesses cheaply, we sell them expensively. It’s just annoying there isn’t a level playing field. Spanish firms, for instance, have a tax advantage because of different accounting rules. “So now there’s a huge subsidy going on from the taxpayers of Spain to UK shareholders,” he laughs.
By the way, he adds, did I see that the boss of NSG had described him as inscrutable? “That from the Japanese,” he giggles, “is wonderful.” And that’s Rudd — pinstriped, starchily poised but never more than a minute away from mischief. He can’t resist it, even if it sends off contradictory signals.
What next? Outside Boots, Pendragon and Barclays, he has got space for another top-notch directorship, preferably at a FTSE manufacturer.
Being a scrupulous planner, he will have targeted something that ticks all the right boxes: political and international dimensions, intriguing complexity, people he likes, yet another step up in scale. Good pay — he likes money — will be important, too. He already earns at least £700,000 from his clutch of senior industrialist posts.
He’s not slowing down because, he says, he loves his work. “I wake every morning thinking, I am so lucky.” His workforce at Alliance Boots will be hoping that luck continues.
Vital statistics
Born: December 31, 1946
Marital status: married, with three children
School: Bemrose Grammar, Derby
First job: articled clerk in Derby
Salary package: about £700,000 from different companies
Homes: Derbyshire, London and Portugal
Car: grey Aston Martin DB9
Favourite book: Animal Farm, by George Orwell
Favourite music: Beach Boys and Buddy Holly
Favourite film: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Favourite gadget: O2 XDA smart phone
Last holiday: shooting in Argentina
Downtime
SIR NIGEL RUDD loves shooting, even though he lost a finger 20 years ago in a shooting accident.
“I dropped the gun and it went off — it was bloody stupid. It was probably the worst moment of my life, blood pouring out like a fountain,” he says. “Of course it bloody hurt! But I kept thinking, how could this hotshot businessman do something so stupid?” He also likes to invest in start-ups. “My son Eddie is in the venture-capital business. I’ve got investments in nanotechnology, pharma and hair removal. Nothing big, £50,000 to £100,000. I love reading the accounts and seeing the progress. I’m an entrepreneur by proxy now.”
But he’s happiest on the golf course — he has a handicap of 11 — with his old mates in Derbyshire. “They’re not interested in what I do in London, and that’s refreshing.”
Sir Nigel Rudd's working day
THE Boots chairman wakes at his home in Belgravia, London, at 6.30am. “I often start with a breakfast meeting,” says Sir Nigel Rudd, “at the Ritz or the RAC club. Because my schedule is difficult, it’s easier for me to catch people passing through London then.”
Later he is driven to his offices at Boots or Barclays.
“I might have meetings in the morning, and in the afternoon I’ll read papers or go on visits. Recently I did the northeast with the Boots operations director. As chairman you go along and see what the issues are.” He will often handle Pendragon business on a Saturday.
If in London, he’ll take people to dinner at Wiltons or his club, Brooks. “Then I’ll walk home. I may not look it but I’m quite fit. It’s to do with the genes — my relatives live for ever. That has its pluses and minuses …”
