Clive Hollick, Baron Hollick

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Lord Temporal
Assumed office
20 June 1991
Life Peerage
Personal details
Born (1945-05-20) 20 May 1945 (age 78)
Political partyLabour
Alma materUniversity of Nottingham
OccupationBusinessman

Clive Richard Hollick, Baron Hollick (born 20 May 1945)[1] is a British businessman with media interests, and a supporter of the Labour Party.

Early life and career

Hollick was born in

Taunton's Grammar School, Southampton, and then read Politics, Psychology and Sociology at the University of Nottingham. He joined Hambros Bank
as a graduate trainee in 1967 and rapidly gained a reputation as a financier and a dealmaker, in 1973 becoming the bank's youngest-ever director.

Vavasseur and MAI

The following year, Hollick became chief executive of JH Vavasseur Group, a failing money broker caught up in the 1973-4

Daily Mail & General Trust
.

MAI moved into television in 1993, when its subsidiary

Tyne Tees, and was a major shareholder in the consortium that was granted the franchise for Channel 5
.

United News and Media

In March 1996 the group merged with

United Newspapers, publishers of the Daily Express, Daily Star, and a string of local newspapers, to form United News & Media, an international media group with revenues of £2.3 billion and 16,000 employees. Many thought Hollick would meet his match in Lord Stevens of Ludgate, proprietor of United; but it was Stevens who was sidelined as Hollick became chief executive, and within 18 months the Express had undergone a radical shift of political affiliation, dropping its long-standing support for the Conservative Party to become an enthusiastic proponent of Tony Blair's New Labour
.

UNM was required to sell its stake in Yorkshire-Tyne Tees as part of the merger, giving

Granada control, but the next year it was permitted to add a third ITV franchise to its holdings, HTV, the broadcaster for Wales and the West Country. As ITV continued to consolidate, Hollick proposed to take over Carlton in 2000, which would have made him the dominant player on the network. But his plans were blocked by the then Secretary of State at the DTI, Stephen Byers, who ruled that the merger would only be acceptable if Hollick gave up the prized Meridian franchise – making the deal pointless. Unable to proceed, Hollick sold the three ITV franchises to Granada in July 2000 for £1.75 billion. The UNM share price dived 13% on the news, but history has since revealed that Hollick sold out right at the top of the market. Ironically, the last restrictions on ITV company joint ownership were lifted by the Communications Act 2003, and in February 2004 Granada and Carlton merged to form a single entity ITV plc
controlling all of the ITV franchises in England and Wales.

Other parts of UNM were also disposed of advantageously, including the demerging of MAI's original securities business in 1998 as Garban, which subsequently became

Yorkshire Post to Johnston Press; the controversial sale of Express Newspapers in 2000 to Richard Desmond, then the owner of a number of pornographic magazines; the sale of the NOP World market research business to GfK in 2005; and the sale of United's 35% stake in Channel 5 to RTL
in 2005.

UNM, renamed United Business Media in 2000, is now strongly focussed on business-to-business publications, information services and exhibitions. Principal subsidiaries are PR Newswire, acquired by United in 1982, and CMP Media, acquired in 1999.

Current activities and other interests

Hollick retired as CEO of United Business Media in April 2005 at the age of 60, and promptly became a managing partner at

Honeywell International
(since 2003).

Other directorships Hollick has held include Hambros Bank, 1973–96;

South Bank Centre arts complex in London. He is currently a member of investment bank Jefferies
Global Senior Advisory Board.

Hollick has been a longtime supporter and donor to the Labour Party, and was one of the founding backers of the New Labour think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). For a time after the 1997 election, he served as a special advisor to Margaret Beckett and Peter Mandelson at the Department of Trade and Industry. Hollick is a supporter of the 2020 Vision political campaign run by Charles Clarke and Alan Milburn, and currently co-ordinating funds for the campaign. He is a former Patron of Prisoners Abroad, a charity that supports the welfare of Britons imprisoned overseas and their families.

He was created a

Susan Mary Woodford-Hollick
and has three daughters.

Hollick has been a partner at the leading European technology and media investment bank GP Bullhound since 2010.

Horllick is a senior advisor at London based venture firm Hambro Perks.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b The International Who's Who: 2004.
  2. ^ "No. 52582". The London Gazette. 25 June 1991. p. 9713.
  3. ^ "Register of Interests for Lord Hollick - MPs and Lords - UK Parliament". members.parliament.uk. Retrieved 26 February 2021.

External links

Orders of precedence in the United Kingdom
Preceded by Gentlemen
Baron Hollick
Followed by
The Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn