Peter Levene

This article is part of the Revolving Door project of Spinwatch.

Peter Levene (The Lord Levene of Portsoken KBE) is a crossbench member of the House of Lords, who was raised to the peerage on 22 June 1997. Levene's career has been in business, government and banking. He was also a special adviser to Conservative defence minister Michael Heseltine and later was permanent secretary in defence procurement.

Levene has been the chairman of US arms giant General Dynamics UK division since 2001, and is vice chairman of Starr International Co Inc.

He is also a former chairman of Lloyds of London and vice chairman of Deutsche Bank (he was Chairman of Bankers Trust International when it was acquired by Deutsche Bank) formerly with both Morgan Stanley (1996-98) and Wasserstein Perella, London (1991-95).

Background

Levene started his career in the defence industry with United Scientific Holdings (1963-85) a small company that grew into a substantial supplier to the UK and overseas Ministries of Defence. He was asked by Michael Heseltine (he is also a Non-executive Director of Heseltine's Haymarket Publishing Group Ltd [1]) to be a personal advisor in the Ministry of Defence, and later he became Permanent Secretary in the role of Chief Defence Procurement (1985-91) [2], UK National Armaments (1988-91), European National Armaments (1989-90), SE Asia Trade Advisory Group (1979-83), and Council of the Defence Manufacturer's Association.

He was an Alderman and Magistrate of the City of London and served as Lord Mayor of London (1998-99) [3]. Member the Court of Common Council City of London (1983-84), Master Liveryman Carmen's Co., (1992-93) Hon. Col Comdt Royal Corps of Transport (1991-93) and the Royal Logistics Corps (1993-). He is also chair of the Bevis Marks Trust and was chairman of the Queen's Golden Jubilee (although he resigned). [4]

He has been a special advisor to the Secretary of State for the Environment (1991-92), the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Competition and Purchasing (1992) and to the Prime Minister on Efficiency and Effectiveness from 1992 to 1997. He also served as Chairman of the Docklands Light Railway (1991) and then Chairman and Chief Executive of Canary Wharf Ltd (1994-96). He received a knighthood in 1989 and became a life Peer in July 1997. He is also a non-executive Chairman of General Dynamics UK Limited [5], on the board J Sainsbury plc, the Chairman of International Financial Services London (formerly British Invisibles which ran the LOTIS Committee) and a member of TOTAL SA.

Affiliations

• Chairman, General Dynamics UK Limited
• Director, Haymarket Group Ltd (publishing)
• Director, Eurotunnel SA
• Vice Chairman, Starr International Co Inc
• Director, China Construction Bank (Asia) Corporation Limited
• Chairman, Tikehau Investments Ltd

Shareholdings

Barclays plc | Apple Computers | Colgate (personal care) | BP | British Gas | Shell Petroleum | Scottish & Southern Energy | GlaxoSmithKline (pharmaceuticals) | Tesco | Goldman Sachs (investment banking) | Total SA (petroleum, France) | Televisa Mexico (cable tv) | Wal-Mart Stores, Inc (consumer goods) | Research in Motion (mobile phones) | Deutsche Bank | Suncorp (petroleum, Canada)