BOOK REVIEW: Gerald Ronson: Leading from the Frontby Gerald Ronson with Jeffrey Robinson; Mainstream Publishing; £18.99 (€22.50)
THE MANY stories told about Gerald Ronson, irascible chief of UK-based property developer Heron, can make fact and fiction difficult to distinguish.
So the surprising thing about Ronson's autobiography, Leading from the Front, is just how many tales turn out to be true, from his prodigious work rate and aggressive business tactics to still-fervent anger over a year in jail for his role in the Guinness share-rigging scandal in the late 1980s, as well as the near-collapse of Heron.
This is the first time Ronson, just turned 70, has broken his silence on the Guinness affair, which put him in jail for buying shares to inflate the companys share price. He lets loose – on his co-defendants, on the English justice system, on the judge, on the British government – with the kind of vitriol deployed by those who see themselves as wronged, perhaps justifiably given a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that he had an unfair trial.
He also does not hold back from marking out those he believes slighted him in the past, as well as those who proved to be true friends.
At one stage in the 1980s, Ronson ran the second-largest private company in the UK, with 300 subsidiaries across nine countries. Disaster struck after a loss of more than $1 billion on the US savings and loans collapse in 1990 almost sank Heron.
That it survived was down to a bailout by a US consortium of billionaire entrepreneurs led by Michael Milken, the junk bond king. And, of course, sheer bloody-minded determination on the part of Ronson.
He built the company up again and has been responsible for 156 developments in nine countries from the US to Spain.
Heron is still at work on landmark schemes in London.
Bloody-mindedness suffuses the book. You don’t have to be particularly clever or sophisticated, he says, but you do need to work harder than anyone else.
The book is framed as advice for the next generation of Ronsons, and the proceeds will go to charity. Work hard, fight harder and never complain is the doctrine, reiterated in countless stories of triumphs and a few defeats. He likens business to boxing: after taking knocks he “dusted myself off and kept punching. Staying in the ring hurts. Losing hurts more.”
The ghost writer, Jeffrey Robinson, has captured the staccato bark of a man who prides himself on his no-nonsense style. This is both an entertaining read and educational about property. Ronson has been at the heart of the market for 40 years, seeing it through numerous booms and busts. His grandfather came to England from Russia; his father started a furniture business in London’s East End. Ronson built a factory for the business, only to make more money by selling it and so started a life dedicated to property development.
His habit of working 14-hour days, six days a week, and taking only the occasional holiday continues.
He is a product of times when quick money was made by aggressive entrepreneurs, thanks to changes in the law in the 1950s. He does not credit himself with much more than hard work and luck, however.
“Frankly, a blind man with one leg could have made money in property in the late 50s and early 60s,” he writes.
He was a millionaire at 25. His property development business grew fast and he diversified into areas such as boat building, holding the rights to sell Atari computers and funding films.
He enjoyed a flashy lifestyle in the 1980s, when the company was turning over £1.6 billion, and could count princess Diana and Margaret Thatcher as friends.
It all came crashing down in the 1990s recession. Heron’s reconstruction – and Ronson’s rapid rehabilitation as a City power broker – make up much of the second half of the book, but he is also anxious to show there is another side to his character.
“What you see is what you get” is his mantra, but underneath the hard-nosed developer is a dedicated family man. He is active in the Jewish community and a benefactor to good causes who gives £1 million a year through the Heron Foundation. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009)
