Charles Forte, Baron Forte
Mortale, Italy | |
---|---|
Died | 28 February 2007 London, England | (aged 98)
Citizenship | British |
Occupation(s) | Caterer and hotelier |
Known for | Forte Group |
Spouse | Irene Mary Chierico |
Children | 6, including Rocco Forte and Olga Polizzi |
Charles Carmine Forte, Baron Forte Kt /ˈfɔːrteɪ/ (26 November 1908 – 28 February 2007) was an Italian-born Scottish hotelier who founded the leisure and hotels conglomerate that ultimately became the Forte Group.[1][2]
Early life
Charles Forte was born as Carmine Forte in
He attended
Early career
After Rome, Forte rejoined his family, who had moved to Weston-super-Mare, where his father ran a café with two cousins. Charles' main training at the age of 21 came in Brighton, where he managed the Venetian.
At 26, he set up his first "milk bar" in 1935, the Strand Milk Bar Ltd.
In the 1950s, he also opened the first catering facility at Heathrow Airport and the first full motorway service station in the UK for cars at Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, on the M1 motorway in 1959. He purchased the Hungaria Restaurant in Lower Regent St. in 1955.[citation needed]
Later career
Trust Houses Group Ltd and Forte Holdings were merged in 1970 to become
The Grierson-Blumenthal stake became a legally "forced" acquisition by the group. It had been a personal holding of Charles Forte and fellow directors of the group, supplying liquor to Forte restaurants and hotels at substantial personal profit, until the prejudice to shareholders was realised in the late 1970s (including possible prosecution under the Companies Act) which obliged its acquisition as a subsidiary.
Forte was the CEO from 1971 and chairman from 1982 (when his son Rocco took over as CEO) of the Group. Happy Eater and the five Welcome Break major road service outlets were bought from Hanson Trust PLC on 1 August 1986. In the 1990s, the company increased its nominal capital and agreed to the public listed companies compliance regime to become Forte Group plc.
Forte passed full control to his son Rocco in 1993, but soon the plc was faced with a hostile takeover bid from Granada. Ultimately, Granada succeeded with a £3.9 billion tender offer in January 1996, which left the family with about £350 million in cash.
On 28 February 2007, Forte died in his sleep at his home in London, aged 98.
Honours and awards
Forte was knighted by The Queen Mother in 1970[7] and created a life peer on 2 February 1982 as Baron Forte, of Ripley in the County of Surrey.[8] He was also a knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
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Family
In January 1943, Forte married Irene Mary, daughter of Giovanni Chierico, of Venice; her family ran a delicatessen on
Together, they had six children, five girls and a boy:
- The Hon. Sir Rocco John Vincent Forte (b. 1945), who was knighted in 1995.[12] On 15 February 1986, he married Aliai Giovanna Maria Ricci in Rome. They have three children.
- The Hon. Olga Forte CBE (b. 1947), who was married firstly to the late Count Alessandro Polizzi[13] and secondly, in 1993, to The Hon. William Shawcross. Olga had two children with Alessandro:
- Channel 5's The Hotel Inspector[14]
- Charlotte Polizzi (b.1973), who married TV celebrity Oliver Peyton
- The Hon. Marie Louise Forte (b. 1950), who married Robert Alexander Burness and had two children.
- The Hon. Irene Forte (b. 1956), who married US Ambassador John Danilovichand had three children.
- The Hon. Giancarla Forte (b. 1959), who married Michael Ulic Anthony Alen-Buckley[15] and had two children.[3]
Irene, Lady Forte died 12 September 2010,[16][10] and she is buried with her husband.
Lord Forte's family came from Mortale (later renamed Monforte in his honour),[4] in the Lazio region of Southern Italy, where he retained the family home.[10]
References
- ^ "Lord Forte". The Telegraph. March 2007.
- ^ "Charles Forte - businessman and hotelier".
- ^ a b Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, vol. 1, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, p. 1472
- ^ a b Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2005-2008, ed. Lawrence Goldman, Oxford University Press, 2013, p. 387
- ^ a b "Hotel baron Lord Forte dies at 98". BBC News Online. 28 February 2007.
- ^ a b c Cowe, Roger (1 March 2007). "Obituary – Lord Forte". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 28 April 2010.
- ^ "No. 45152". The London Gazette. 17 July 1970. p. 7941.
- ^ "No. 48883". The London Gazette. 5 February 1982. p. 1621.
- ^ Debrett's Peerage. 2003. p. 760.
- ^ a b c "Lives remembered: Irene, the Lady Forte". 24 September 2010.
- ^ Charles Forte (1986). Charles Forte – Autobiography. London: Sedgewick.
- ^ "No. 54058". The London Gazette. 9 June 1995. p. 8075.
- London Evening Standard. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
- ^ "Relative Values: Olga Polizzi and her daughter Alexandra". The Times. 1 July 2007.
- ^ Hosking, Patrick, "RAB bosses cash in £25m of shares", thetimes.co.uk, 23 June 2005.
- ^ The Telegraph, 14 September 2010, "Notices"