Euan McCorquodale

The Telegraph September 30th 2010

Lively St James’s habitué, businessman and farmer who greatly expanded the family printing firm before retiring to the Borders

During Euan McCorquodale’s tenure as vice-chairman of McCorquodale & Co, the 150- year-old family printing company, the firm reached a high point with factories and printing works in the United States, the Far East, Asia, South Africa and Europe. Printing everything from credit cards to Harpers & Queen, it succumbed to a hostile takeover bid in the early 1980s in which the publisher Robert Maxwell emerged from the shadows as a large minority shareholder. It was the end of the company as a family entity.

McCorquodale retired from the board, aged 59, and moved full-time to his home in the Scottish Borders. There gifted with a mind that could understand machinery as well as sound business practice, he drove the tractor and combine, working to make the farm profitable. He also, to the delight of neighbouring farmers, became chairman of the local grain merchant Eildon Grain — saving it, as one local farmer put it, from bankruptcy — and joined the board of directors for Meigle Printers in Galashiels.

Euan McCorquodale was born at Braehead House in Barnton, then a suburb of Edinburgh, in 1929. His father had rented a house while, as a soldier in the Royal Scots Greys, he was stationed at Redford Barracks. The young McCorquodale was sent to a boarding school near Winchester and then Eton, where he did not shine academically. By his own admission he was a poor student, emerging with no exam credits but plenty of friends. “It was an expensive holiday camp,” he recalled. Any sporting prowess was confined to some occasional rowing, although there was little formal encouragement. “If you didn’t feel like rowing, then you didn’t row,” he said. “One laughed about and larked about with the lads.” He did, however, develop a talent for understanding machines. Aged 6 he had been given an old mowing machine by his father, who was buying a new model. Fascinated by mechanics, he took it to bits and put it back together countless times until he learnt how the engine worked. And if there was an achievement at school it was his building of a wireless set in the School of Mechanics, Eton’s workshop.

His childhood with his two sisters, Helen (who married one of his father’s subalterns, Sandy Gordon) and Mary (later Countess of Strathmore), followed his father’s postings; for a while they lived at a farm in Buckinghamshire, Winslow Hall.

During his National Service he became 2nd Lieutenant in the 8th Hussars stationed outside Leicester.

“I was in command of four Centurion tanks and no petrol to drive them,” he recalled. “So it was very boring for the men, who just cleaned them all the time.”

Afterwards he was encouraged to join McCorquodale & Co, which had been founded by his great-grandfather. By the early 1950s the firm had 25 factories in Britain and was starting to expand abroad. Working for the family firm was no shoe-in, however. “You had to show a bit of poke about it,” he said. “A couple of cousins of mine joined at the same time and were rather laid-back and got the chop.”

At the time the company was run by two uncles who were chairman and managing director. They decided to give him a position at a subsidiary firm, the Liverpool Printing and Stationery Company, where he started work on January 1, 1950. He joined as a young master printer, driving to work from Nantwich in a Ford Eight to an old bombed-out area of the city by the docks, where the factory was.

After six months he was sent on to London, where he enrolled at the London College of Printing for a two-year course.
It was the height of the debutante season and, while he studied by day, the nights were filled with dances at London’s smartest hotels — Claridge’s, the Savoy and the Hyde Park Hotel — and then at private houses at weekends.

His career, meanwhile, progressed with a posting to Fanfold (another company subsidiary), a stationery factory in North London. He was later made chairman of Fanfold and then brought in as vice-chairman of the parent company. This meant the start of much foreign travel because the company, under his guidance, expanded greatly overseas.
Meanwhile, he was a force on the London social scene; a familiar face at the bar of White’s, dining at Pratt’s or dancing at Annabel’s. He was, a friend said, “a walking Who’s Who, who knew more about your family and how you’d won or lost fortunes than you did”.

But while McCorquodale & Co grew in strength and success it also, in 1986, became the victim of a hostile takeover bid, albeit by a smaller firm, Norton Opax. Its bidding forced the share price of McCorquodale from 150p to 313p, at which price the board had no option but to accept. Meanwhile, Robert Maxwell had been buying shares in the company until he owned 21 per cent.

“I met him several times,” McCorquodale said. “In fact I saw him once at a dinner in London and told him he was a crook. He said to me, ‘I like that sort of remark, my boy.’ We laughed and he said we should be working for him. I said that would never happen and he put his fat, ugly hand on my shoulder and said, ‘You don’t know what you’re missing.’ I said, ‘That’s the trouble, I do.’ ”

Euan McCorquodale and the board fought the takeover bid until it was lost and the senior management was bought out.

He was divorced from his wife Sally Clive in 1964. Five years later he married Sally May. She survives him, along with his son and daughter from his first marriage and two sons and a daughter from his second.

Euan McCorquodale, businessman and farmer, was born on October 22, 1929. He died on August 3, 2010, aged 80

The Scotsman

Euan McCorquodale, businessman and farmer. Born: 22 October, 1929, in Edinburgh. Died: 3 August, 2010 in St Boswells, aged 80.

Before retiring to the Borders and becoming a successful farmer, Euan McCorquodale had spent many years at the family publishers McCorquodale & Co, which printed magazines such as Harpers & Queens, a wide variety of stationery products and entered at an early stage the printing of credit cards. The family had controlled the business for 150 years and by the time McCorquodale joined it in 1953 it was a worldwide, and very successful, business. It was eventually bought by the controversial tycoon Robert Maxwell in 1986 in a bitter and contentious takeover. McCorquodale returned to Scotland and farmed at St Boswells, where he worked to improve his farm and was well-known among local farmers for his keen interest in agriculture.

Euan McCorquodale was born at Braehead House in Barnton, Edinburgh, and was the son of Brigadier Norman McCorquodale. While serving at Redford Barracks with the Royal Scots Greys the brigadier had rented a house in the capital, so the family knew the city well. With his two sisters, Helen and Mary (later Countess of Strathmore) much of their youth was spent in regimental quarters where their father was stationed. He was educated at Eton, where he did not shine (he dismissed the school as “an expensive holiday camp”) and then did national service with the 8th Hussars stationed outside Leicester.

In 1950 he joined McCorquodale & Co and found it a challenging prospect – “It was no shoe-in” he said – and first worked in the north west before attending the London College of Printing. The two years in London provided McCorquodale with ample time to enjoy many society functions, but such events did not detract from his career and he slowly progressed up the company’s ladder. He displayed a firm grasp of business and the firm’s products. In 1955 he was appointed a vice-chairman of the company and was much involved in expanding McCorquodale’s burgeoning overseas business.

The firm was recognised as one of the fastest expanding companies in the industry and was often mentioned as a possible takeover target in the City. In 1986 it received an unwelcome offer from Robert Maxwell’s Pergamon Press. The first bid was rejected and a bitter battle for the company’s shares ensued. During the fight Maxwell announced he had bought in the market 22 per cent of the McCorquodale equity: that was to prove the clinching factor. However, the tactics were enquired into by the Takeover Panel and after a lengthy examination the bid was allowed to proceed. Maxwell had won a prized and long-established business. At its conclusion McCorquodale and fellow senior executives were bought out.

McCorquodale was involved in the company’s defence and recalled years later: “I met Maxwell several times.I met him once at a dinner in London and told him he was a crook. He said to me, ‘I like that sort of remark, my boy.’ We laughed and he said we should be working for him. I said that would never happen, and he put his fat, ugly hand on my shoulder and said, ‘You don’t know what you are missing.’ I said, ‘That’s the trouble, I do.'”

Instead of working for Maxwell McCorquodale retired to a farm near St Boswells which his father had acquired in 1946.There he farmed both arable and cattle and was most active in its day-to-day management. He was a popular figure with the local merchants at Eildon Grain – of which he later became chairman. He was also active on the board of Meigle Printers in Galashiels, and he was instrumental in its relocation to Tweedbank Industrial Estate. He also encouraged its printing of many of the guidebooks for the large Border houses. McCorquodale was a colourful character both in business and as a farmer. His joyous personality was much appreciated and his exuberant sense of humour was much treasured by his many friends. His canny sense of business and shrewd and active brain was a benefit to many in the Borders.

He was divorced from his first wife Sally Clive in 1964. In 1969 McCorquodale married Sally May, who survives him along with a son and daughter from his first marriage and two sons and a daughter from his second.

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