Tiny Rowland

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Roland "Tiny" Rowland

Roland "Tiny" Rowland (November 27, 1917 – July 25, 1998) was a British businessman and chairman of the Lonrho conglomerate from 1962 to 1994. He gained fame from a number of high-profile takeover bids, in particular his bid to take control of Harrods.

1 German background
2 Lonrho
3 Trivia
4 References
5 External links
6 See also

[edit] German background

Rowland, originally Roland Walter Fuhrhop, was born on November 27, 1917 in a World War I detention camp for aliens in India, as the child of an Anglo-Dutch mother and a German trader father. At first denied access to the United Kingdom after the war, he and his family moved to Great Britain in 1937, where he attended Churcher's College, Hampshire.^[1] He then worked for his uncle's shipping business in the City of London. He took his uncle's surname, 'Rowland' on his 22nd birthday. On the outbreak of World War 2 he was conscripted into the British Army where he served with the Royal Army Medical Corps. As enemy aliens, his parents were interned on the Isle of Man, where his mother died. He himself was interned as an enemy alien after trying to arrange for the release of his father.^[2]

[edit] Lonrho

In the post-war years, Tiny Rowland moved to Rhodesia where he worked together with Eric Richard Henry Smith of Ayr, Scotland, on Luton Farm near Gwelo (now Gweru), Southern Rhodesia. Tiny Rowland had worked for Eric Smith after World War II in London as a chauffeur for a private car hire company operating out of Mayfair that was owned and operated by Eric Smith. Eric and Tiny were close friends but fell out when Tiny had an affair with Eric's then wife, Irene Smith.

Rowland was recruited to the London and Rhodesian Mining and Land Company, later Lonrho, as chief executive in 1962. Under his directorship, the firm expanded out of its origins in mining and became a conglomerate, dealing in newspapers, hotels, distribution, and textiles, and many other lines of business. British Prime Minister, Edward Heath, criticised the company and described it in the House of Commons as "an unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism", referring to a 1973 court case over the company's management style. The phrase "the unacceptable face of capitalism" is now often quoted.

In 1983, Rowland took over The Observer newspaper and became its chairman. He also campaigned to gain control of Harrods department store in Knightsbridge, but was defeated by the Egyptian-born tycoon Mohamed Al-Fayed, which led to a well-publicised feud between the two men.

In a boardroom coup in October 1993, Rowland was forced to step down as Chairman of Lonrho but only after getting the board to appoint his nominee, Sir John Leahy, as his successor.

In 1996 President Nelson Mandela awarded Rowland the Order of Good Hope, the highest South African honour.^[2]

He died in London on July 25, 1998.

[edit] Trivia

Rowland is prominently featured in the second part of the documentary The Mayfair Set by Adam Curtis, where he is profiled as a ruthless business man, jetting through Africa in order to take-over British companies in former colonies.

He was also said to have served as the model for the ruthless British businessman "Sir Edward Matherson" played by Stewart Granger in the 1978 film The Wild Geese.

The satirical magazine Private Eye frequently referred to him as "tiny but perfect", not because of any shortness in stature, but because he was always impeccably groomed.

[edit] References

^ (March 2005) Hutchinson Encyclopedia of Britain - Biographies. Helicon Publishing.
^ ^a ^b Tiny in name, not in nature. BBC Online (July 26th, 1998).