ICI: Extract from 'Written in Flames'

Imperial Chemical Industries went through a massive shake-up in the early '80s. The directors called It –“The Holocaust”, the workforce called John Harvey-Jones, then chairman, -“the human face of the dole Queue”.

ICl's pesticides, fertll1zer and plant breeding and Its Industrial chemicals are now taking second place to making drugs for the consumer market. It's also become the largest paint company In the world With Its Dulux brand. Its profits are £ 1 billion.

ICI’s semi-Japanese management style has kept Its workers fairly Quiet through reorganization and massive overseas spending. But It couldn't hush up a terrible safety record, however, with toxic leaks across Grangemouth and fire and gas across Middlesbrough In '86.

ICI was formed by several fam1Jy chemical and explosives companies merging to fight off competition from the German rivals I.G. Farben. It was I.G.. Farben which used concentration camp inmates to test out Us new chemicals under the Nazi regime.

One of ICI’s founding families, the Tennants, bought themselves Into the nobility and acquired country estates and fantasy Islands.

Following their example, former chair John Harvey-Jones has become a landowner In Herefordshire, owning a stately home, Budhall Manor, near Ross-on-Wye . He has another house in Essex: Sloe House, Sloe Hill, Halstead.

The new chairman of ICI is Denys Henderson, a 55 year old Scottish sol1citor, who's parents were colonial tea planters. His address is Tree Tops, Eghams Close, Forty Green Road, Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire. Henderson is also a director of Barclays Bank and the agribusiness group Dalgety.

Alan Clemants, finance director, an Oxford graduate and director of Trafalgar House, who own the Cunard Line and property developments, and of Cable and Wireless, the telecom company, lives at Wildbriar, 41 Shirley Hills Road, Croydon .in Surrey.

Other top executives :

• Ronald Hampel (55) of .The Orchard, Lodsworth Common, Petworth .in..Sussex.
• Thomas Hutchlson (56) of Shelley’s Cottage, Dane End, Ware in Herts.
• Robin Ibbs, knighted for services to the Thatcher cabinet, is still on secondment to the Prime Minister's Office.
• Sir Alex Jarratt, chair of the military and medical equipment company Smiths Industries, Sir Patrlck Meaney, chair of the leisure group the Rank Organization and Sir Jeremy Morse, chair of Lloyds Bank, are non-executives on the ICI board. ICI Is the only multinational to invite executives from foreign companies onto its board. The chief of Toshiba and the head of a West German insurance group are tokens of the shared interests of a trans-global ruling class.