Gordon White, Baron White of Hull

Vincent Gordon Lindsay White, Baron White of Hull, KBE (11 May 1923 – 23 August 1995), known as Gordon White, was co-founder with James Hanson of the British conglomerate Hanson plc and one of the most successful corporate raiders of the 1970s and 1980s known for his uncanny Intuition and ruthless takeover tactics.

He died in Los Angeles aged 72, leaving most of his £70 million fortune to his son Lucas.

White attended De Aston School in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire.

He was a Royal Air Force pilot during World War II in clandestine operations in India, Burma and Thailand.

It was during the war that White became friends with Bill Hanson, British show-jumping star and younger brother of James Hanson.

Temperamentally and perhaps because of his wartime experiences, after the war White was more interested in having fun than working.

Possessed of considerable panache, he set himself up as a Hollywood impresario in the early 1950s.

In 1958 in one of their first business ventures together he and James Hanson hit on the idea of importing jokey American greetings cards, then largely unknown in Britain.

By 1964 he and Hanson had started to build up Hanson Trust out of the former Wiles Group.

Hanson plc turned into one of the largest British-owned conglomerates with annual profits of more than £1.5 billion and a strategy of growth through acquisition.

From 1965 to 1973 White was deputy chairman of Hanson Trust Ltd.

Unlike Slater, White and Hanson survived the British slump in the early 1970s, but the "quantum leap" which had been promised to shareholders did not come until 1979, the beginning of the Margaret Thatcher era, which saw a move toward capitalism and a new respect for businessmen such as White and Hanson, who were not afraid to take on trade unions and break up established companies in pursuit of profit.

In the 1970s and 80s White and Hanson turned the Hanson group into a multinational encompassing, amongst others, US chemical factories, UK electricity suppliers and Australian gold mines.

The Hanson group's other products included batteries, cigarettes, cod liver oil capsules, cranes, golf clubs, Jacuzzis, timber and toys.

In 1973 White left Britain for New York City where he developed Hanson's American holdings.

He married three times.

He remained chairman of Hanson Industries North America, based in Iselin, New Jersey, from 1973 until his death.

"Perhaps the most successful British buccaneer in America is the canny, soft- spoken Sir Gordon White, 64, chairman of Hanson Industries, the U.S. investing arm of London's Hanson Trust conglomerate. Hanson employs more than 35,000 workers in the eight U.S. firms it has acquired since 1973. Among the prizes: SCM, manufacturer of Smith-Corona typewriters, and Endicott Johnson, the shoe retailer. White's current target is Kidde, a maker of products ranging from Farberware kitchen utensils to Jacuzzi Whirlpool Baths. Hanson has made an offer for Kidde, and a successful deal would double the firm's U.S. employment roster. So far White has spent $2 billion on his acquisitions."

From 1979 to 1986, Hanson Trust stalked its prey on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, acquiring a succession of ever-larger companies, often in hard-fought takeover battles planned and directed by White but fronted by Hanson.

At this time White and Hanson were giving millions of pounds to the Conservative Party.

Successful acquisitions included the Ever Ready company Berec, the retail group UDS, and finally Imperial Group which included hotels, the Courage (brewery) and Golden Wonder crisps.

At almost £2bn, the Imperial Group takeover set the record as Britain's biggest.

It also set the record as the bitterest.

The fight was a public one, through full-page newspaper advertisements; but behind the scenes private investigators sought, unsuccessfully, to prove allegations of criminal activities in US side of business which was White's domain.

The fight for Imperial took its toll.

He was a governor of the British Film Institute, 1982–84.

Bill Hanson died aged 27 of cancer, leaving his bereaved elder brother James With the duty of carrying on the Hanson business name.

White became a surrogate brother to James, and was eventually the brains of the Hanson takeover machine.

Perhaps as a consolation prize, White was given a life peerage in the resignation honours list (Hanson had been made a life peer in 1983).

In 1986 The Times focused on a controversial attempt to take £70 million from the Courage brewery pension fund.

In the City there was speculation as to how the takeover juggernaut could keep going with its aim to acquire ever-larger targets, and as Hanson and White passed normal retirement age there was speculation as to their succession plans.

Neither had any intention of stepping down, but attempts to continue the proven method were, not surprisingly, becoming more difficult not least as the class of possible targets got smaller.

Then there was the issue of the pair's political connection.

In November 1990, Thatcher was ousted as prime minister, seriously weakening the pair's political support.

His first marriage, to Elisabeth Kalen, the daughter of a Swedish diplomat, produced daughters Sita and Carolina, and the second, to an American actress, Virginia North (whom he divorced in 1991), gave him a son, Lucas.

After the divorce he lived with a former model, Victoria Tucker, 40 years his junior.

The couple married in a registry office in Hamilton, Bermuda, in 1992.

The business trading as Hanson White became one of Britain's largest suppliers of greeting cards, giftwrap and giftware and was sold to a management buy-out for £10.8m in 1997.

The pair's entry into serious business, and the world of takeovers, came through White's connection to Jim Slater, the accountant turned stock market whizz kid who introduced them to the potential in public company shares.

White and Hanson concentrated on emulating Slater's takeover techniques, building up a public company through acquisitions and disposals.