Erhalten Sie Zugang zu diesem und mehr als 300000 Büchern ab EUR 5,99 monatlich.
- Herausgeber: Icon Books
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
This is a book about the 75 years of a very successful accountancy practice. They are 75 important years both in the history of the United Kingdom, encompassing the Second World War and all the recessions and periods of growth in the 60-year period following that war, and in the history of accountancy and how it has had to adapt to both the changes in accounting practices and in accounting technology. As you will see, the Price Bailey story is one of growth from a single partner in one office to 22 partners in seven offices, not only in East Anglia but in the City and West End of London as well as in Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Price Bailey, which became a Limited Liability Partnership in 2004, is now the 29th biggest accountancy practice in the country. Its new Managing Director, Martin Clapson, is also Chairman of the European Board of the International Association of Professional Accountants (IAPA). Many people view accountants as a necessary adjunct to their life because the law of the land demands that financial dealings, whether personal or corporate, be properly assessed and recorded and that the correct tax, if any is due, be paid. There is no doubt that Price Bailey has always been meticulous in making sure this work is done properly and in due time. However, it has also always been the practice of the firm to carry out the above in an open and friendly manner and to offer more than the mere adding up of sums. As Richard Price, son of one of the original partners and a very long-serving member of Price Bailey, will tell you in the book, the firm has always made sure that they were close to the clients and often mixed with them socially. As you will also see, Price Bailey, especially in the last twelve years under the leadership of Peter Gillman, has greatly increased the services it can offer. Most recently, it is now authorised to give legal advice.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 256
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
Das E-Book (TTS) können Sie hören im Abo „Legimi Premium” in Legimi-Apps auf:
Ähnliche
PETER PUGH
A BROAD VISION
The Price Bailey Story
Contents
Foreword
The origins of Price Bailey can be traced back some 75 years, when Leslie Benten as L.H. Benten & Co. set up at 6 High Street, Bishop’s Stortford. Within a few years, Stanley Price and Reg Bailey were recruited and it was these two chartered accountants who took the firm forward after Leslie Benten left in the early 1950s.
While the Bishop’s Stortford office remained the centre of Price Bailey, the firm expanded throughout East Anglia over the next 50 years. Stanley Price and Reg Bailey were shrewd managers and recruited skilful and personable accountants who gave the firm a fully justified reputation for reliable service by people who were always a pleasure to deal with.
The Bishop’s Stortford office benefited from the expansion of the nearby Stansted Airport and the Cambridge office from the Cambridge Phenomenon which began in the 1960s and continued to grow and attract many successful technology companies.
The British economy has grown since the end of the Second World War but there have been a number of recessions. Price Bailey has weathered those recessions and has continued to grow. At the beginning of the twenty-first century the current Executive Chairman, Peter Gillman, succeeded John Riseborough as Senior Partner and began a process of departmentalising the firm, a process which everyone now agrees has been crucial in enabling Price Bailey to grow even faster in the last ten years.
Price Bailey expanded out of its East Anglian comfort zone in 2007 when it opened an office in the City of London and in 2011 it acquired a firm in Mayfair in the West End. Between these two important developments it also acquired a practice in Guernsey. And the professionalism of the firm has not gone unnoticed with it being named ‘Large Firm of the Year’ in the Accountancy Age awards in 2010.
In an age when businesses come and go within a few years, it’s encouraging to think that a professional firm can prosper and grow, without losing sight of its history and character.
All of us, whether working for the firm or living locally here in Bishop’s Stortford, would like to wish everyone at Price Bailey, now and in the past, our congratulations on reaching this milestone.
Mark Prisk, MP for Hertford and Stortford, Minister for Housing and formerly Minister for Business, Innovation and Skills
The early partners, Stanley Price and Reginald Bailey.
Introduction
This is a book about the 75 years of a very successful accountancy practice.
They are 75 important years both in the history of the United Kingdom, encompassing the Second World War and all the recessions and periods of growth in the 60-year period following that war, and in the history of accountancy and how it has had to adapt to the changes in both accounting practices and accounting technology.
As you will see, the Price Bailey story is one of growth from a single partner in one office to 22 partners in seven offices, not only in East Anglia but in the City and West End of London as well as in Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Price Bailey, which became a Limited Liability Partnership in 2004, is now the 29th biggest accountancy practice in the country. Its new Managing Director, Martin Clapson, is also Chairman of the European Board of the International Association of Professional Accountants (IAPA).
Many people view accountants as a necessary adjunct to their life because the law of the land demands that financial dealings, whether personal or corporate, be properly assessed and recorded and that the correct tax, if any is due, be paid. There is no doubt that Price Bailey has always been meticulous in making sure this work is done properly and in due time.
However, it has also always been the practice of the firm to carry out the above in an open and friendly manner and to offer more than the mere adding up of sums. As Richard Price, son of one of the original partners and a very long-serving member of Price Bailey, will tell you in the book, the firm has always made sure that they were close to the clients and often mixed with them socially.
As you will also see, Price Bailey, especially in the last twelve years under the leadership of Peter Gillman, has greatly increased the services it can offer. Most recently, it is now authorised to give legal advice.
As it happens, I, the author, have been a client of Price Bailey for 30 years. They have looked after the financial affairs of me personally, as well as my role as an author and as Chairman of my publishing company, Icon Books. I have always enjoyed working with them and have become friends with a number of the partners.
I hope you enjoy reading the book as much as I have enjoyed researching and writing it.
Peter Pugh, June 2013
Author’s acknowledgements
Writing, printing and publishing the history of an organisation requires a team effort and the two teams mostly involved, Price Bailey and Icon Books, have made a massive contribution. I interviewed over 50 people, mostly present or former employees of Price Bailey and all, without exception, were very helpful, especially the former Chairman, Richard Price, the former Managing Director now Executive Chairman, Peter Gillman, and the new Managing Director, Martin Clapson.
At Icon Books, the Editorial Director, Duncan Heath, has overseen the project and Marie Doherty and Nick Halliday organised the typesetting and the photographs.
I would like to thank all of them and all the interviewees without whose contributions we would not have had a book.
Peter Pugh, 14 June 2013
Monetary values
Money and its value is always a problem when writing about a period that stretches over a number of years, particularly when parts of that period have included some years of very high inflation. Furthermore, establishing a yardstick for measuring the change in the value of money is not easy either. Do we take the external value of the £ or what it will buy in the average (whatever that may be) weekly shopping basket? Do we relate it to the average manual wage? As we know, while prices in general might rise, and have done so in this country every year since the Second World War, the prices of certain products might fall. However, we are writing about a business, and money and its value crop up on almost every page. We therefore have to make some judgements. We can only generalise, and I think the best yardstick is probably the average working wage.
Taking this as the yardstick, here is a measure of the £ sterling relative to the £ in 2012.
Apart from wartime, prices were stable for 250 years, but prices began to rise in the run-up to the First World War.
Since 1997, the rate of inflation, by the standards of most of the twentieth century, has been very low, averaging, until very recently, less than the government’s originally stated aim of 2.5 per cent (since reduced to 2 per cent). Some things such as telephone charges and many items made in the Far East, notably China, are going down in price while others, such as houses, moved up very sharply from 1997 to 2008 before falling back in the financial crisis. In 2011, on the back of sharply rising commodity and food prices, inflation accelerated again to reach 5 per cent per annum. However, as commodity prices fell back and much of the world suffered very low growth the rate of inflation began to subside again in 2012.
1
A tough time to start
THE HUNGRY THIRTIES
‘I HAVETO TELL YOU NOW …’
NOCOMPUTERS, NO MOBILES
HAYTERS
THE HUNGRY THIRTIES
The Price Bailey firm of accountants was effectively founded on 2 April 1938 when Leslie Benten opened L.H. Benten & Co. at 6 High Street, Bishop’s Stortford. He moved to 1–3 Market Square on 21 March 1939. Benten was joined by Stanley Price in 1943. Price had been born in Bradford in 1917 but the family moved to Bournemouth when he was eight. Stanley’s father, Clarence, had married Stanley’s mother, Lily. Tragically, Clarence Price was killed in the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917, and Stanley was brought up by his mother who did not marry again. She had been a milliner with her two sisters, Mary and Alice, when they were still in Bradford and opened a milliner’s shop when they moved to Bournemouth. Stanley began work articled to an incorporated accountant. Stanley Price became an Articled Clerk of The Society of Incorporated Accountants and Auditors paying £250 [£15,000 in today’s money] and signing an agreement on 24 May 1934. There he met his future wife, Barbara, who worked in the practice as a secretary. They moved to Wisbech in north Cambridgeshire where there seemed to be a partnership in prospect for Stanley. However, he did not remain there long and moved to Bishop’s Stortford and joined Leslie Benten.
There were a number of farmers in the Bishop’s Stortford countryside among the first clients of Benten and Price. One of them was Shrubbs Farm owned by the Liddell family who remained with the practice for over 50 years.
It is easy, and perhaps a relief, to forget the tough economic conditions of 1930s Britain and how hard life was for the majority of people. At the beginning of the decade there had been a world depression of unexpected proportions. This had led to massive unemployment and Britain did not escape. Nor was the suffering confined to the industrial areas of the Midlands, the North of England, South Wales and the industrial areas of Scotland. For example in South-East London, Annie Weaving, the 37 year old wife of an unemployed husband, and mother of seven children, collapsed and died while bathing her six-month old twins. She had been struggling to feed her children and her husband and pay the rent on the 48 shillings (£2.40 or about £100 in today’s money) her husband received in benefits. At the inquest the coroner said that, by not eating herself, she had ‘sacrificed her life’ for the sake of her children.
Letter from Leslie Benten to clients on 2 April 1938.
Statisticians of the time divided the 12 million families in Britain into four social grades, classified according to the chief earner or income receiver in each family.
Letter from Leslie Benten to clients notifying them of his move, 21 March 1939.
The rich and landed of Downton Abbey and Upstairs, Downstairs were few and far between!
Life for the middle-class families in Bishop’s Stortford was not as bad as this, of course, but nevertheless, businesses were struggling and every effort had to be made to keep down costs. The upper and middle classes were a very small percentage of the population.
Back at L.H. Benten & Co., the fees and balance sheet at the end of the first year of trading were:
We need to multiply the numbers by 60 to arrive at today’s value. It would therefore look something like this:
‘I HAVE TO TELL YOU NOW …’
The arguments have raged back and forth for more than 60 years over Britain’s preparedness, or lack of it, for war in 1939. In hindsight it is easy to see that a further war with Germany was inevitable, and indeed, the leader of the French army in the First World War, Marshal Foch, described the Treaty of Versailles as merely a twenty-year armistice, a remarkably accurate prediction. However, the spirit of the 1920s and early 1930s was one of peace and goodwill. There had to be a better way to settle men’s differences than the appalling slaughter that had taken place between 1914 and 1918. It was not only national revulsion at this carnage that led the British governments of the 1920s and 1930s to reject the isolated calls for rearmament. There was also a widespread feeling, nurtured by such publications as Maynard Keynes’s The Economic Consequences of thePeace, that Germany had been treated too harshly. And when Hitler began to rant about the injustice of it all, some were inclined to wonder why the Germans scattered around central and eastern Europe should not live under one government. For example, when the German army marched into the demilitarised Rhineland in 1936, Lord Lothian said: ‘Hitler is doing no more than taking over his own back garden.’
Foreign Office Intelligence had changed its mind about Germany’s preparedness for war. Original calculations suggested a date some time in 1942, but in 1936 fresh information indicated that the Germans might be ready as early as January 1939. This was one of the reasons for the rapid signing of contracts for Hurricanes and Spitfires before either had been fully tested
As we now know, Germany did not invade Poland in January 1939 but at the end of August that year, and the anticipated war was declared on 3 September. By that date, 308 of the 310 Spitfires had been built and tested. What we do not know, and never will, is whether Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was being Machiavellian when he negotiated with Hitler at Munich in September 1938, knowing full well that Britain was not prepared for war. Historians have disagreed ever since about Chamberlain’s motives. For example, A.J.P. Taylor, Britain’s populist historian of the 1960s and 1970s, wrote in the Oxford History of England, published in 1965:
The clearest lesson to be drawn from the crisis over Czechoslovakia was that Great Britain should be more heavily armed, whether for negotiation or for war. Chamberlain, a persistent advocate of rearmament, emphasized this lesson strongly and gave Hitler some excuse for complaining that Chamberlain was as insincere in appeasement as Hitler himself was accused of being.
On the other hand, Peter Clarke, Professor of Modern British History at Cambridge, argues in Hope and Glory, Britain 1900–1990, that:
The cynical idea that he was buying time at Munich, put around by some later apologists, had no part in Chamberlain’s thinking.
Whatever the truth of his intentions, Chamberlain effectively gave Czechoslovakia to the Germans. Jan Masaryk, the Czech minister for London, said to Lord Halifax, the British Foreign Secretary: ‘If you have sacrificed my nation to preserve the peace of the world I will be the first to applaud you. But if not, God help your soul.’
Chamberlain bought another year for Britain, and for Britain’s factories to turn out weapons of war. It is generally accepted that the Battle of Britain came within a whisker of being lost, and that this would have left the way open for a German invasion. Certainly, ‘Stuffy’ Dowding, commander of RAF Fighter Command, had no doubts about the wisdom of Chamberlain’s deal with Hitler, saying: ‘It was a very good thing that he did act in that way.’
Whether Chamberlain had been a very skilful diplomat or not, on 3 September 1939 he was forced to announce to the British people in sombre tones, these memorable words:
This morning the British ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o’clock that they were prepared to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us …
… I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.
Clearly, maintaining a new accountancy firm through what became a world war and which lasted for nearly six long years was not going to be easy but somehow, Leslie Benten and Stanley Price, who, as we saw, joined him in May 1943, did so. At least they had the compensation that wars are always inflationary and that they were able to put their fees up.
NO COMPUTERS, NO MOBILES
Eventually peace came. What was Britain like when the War finally ended – in Europe in May 1945 and in the Far East in August 1945?
Reference for Stanley Price from Larking, Larking and Whiting, 1943.
I cannot improve on what the masterly David Kynaston wrote in his Austerity Britain 1945–51:
Britain in 1945. No supermarkets, no motorways, no teabags, no sliced bread, no frozen food, no flavoured crisps, no lager, no microwaves, no dishwashers, no Formica, no vinyl, no CDs, no computers, no mobiles, no duvets, no Pill, no trainers, no hoodies, no Starbucks. Four Indian restaurants. Shops on every corner, pubs on every corner, cinemas in every high street, red telephone boxes, Lyons Corner Houses, trams, trolleybuses, steam trains. Woodbines, Craven ‘A’, Senior Service, smoke, smog, Vapex inhalant. No launderettes, no automatic washing machines, wash day every Monday, clothes boiled in a tub, scrubbed on the draining board, rinsed in the sink, put through the mangle, hung out to dry. Central heating rare, coke boilers, water geysers, the coal fire, the hearth, the home, chilblains common. Abortion illegal, homosexual relationships illegal, suicide illegal, capital punishment legal. White faces everywhere. Back-to backs, narrow cobble streets, Victorian terraces, no high-rises. Arterial roads, suburban semis, the march of the pylon. Austin Sevens, Ford Eights, no seat belts, Triumph motorcycles with sidecars. A Bakelite wireless in the home, Housewives’ Choice or Workers’ Playtime or ITMA on the air, televisions almost unknown, no programmes to watch, the family eating together. Milk of Magnesia, Vick Vapour Rub, Friar’s Balsam, Fynnon Salts, Eno’s, Germolene. Suits and hats, dresses and hats, cloth caps and mufflers, no leisurewear, no ‘teenagers’. Heavy coins, heavy shoes, heavy suitcases, heavy tweed coats, heavy leather footballs, no unbearable lightness of being. Meat rationed, butter rationed, lard rationed, margarine rationed, sugar rationed, tea rationed, cheese rationed, jam rationed, eggs rationed, sweets rationed, soap rationed, clothes rationed. Make do and mend.
In terms of government, to many people’s surprise, the voters rejected the Conservatives and their leader, Winston Churchill and gave a landslide victory to the Labour Party. Whereas the attitude in 1918 had been one of trying to return to the golden pre-war era, in 1945 few wanted to return to the 1930s.
Stanley Price became a partner at L.H. Benten on Christmas Eve 1946 and, shortly afterwards, the firm opened a second office at Gothic House in Old Harlow. On 1 April 1950 Reginald Bailey was appointed a partner and the firm became known as Benten, Price and Bailey. The Bishop’s Stortford office moved to the Guild House. In 1956 a Cambridge office was opened in Kinneard Way and Leslie Benten left the practice on 30 September 1956.
Stanley Price worked closely with Jim Tee of Tees, the solicitors in Bishop’s Stortford (now in Cambridge, Chelmsford, Great Dunmow, Northampton and Saffron Walden as well) and one of the current partners, David Redfern, reckons that Tees were considered THE solicitors in Bishop’s Stortford, while Price Bailey were considered THE accountants. Jim Tee and Stanley Price were admired as ‘men of affairs’ giving wise advice.
All three partners must have been close in the 1950s because Stanley’s son, Richard, can remember going to both the Benten and Bailey houses on social occasions. In Richard’s view, Reg Bailey was the meticulous partner while his father, Stanley Price, was more adventurous.
Letter from Leslie Benten to clients telling them he has made Stanley Price a partner as of 1 January 1947. It also shows that L.H. Benten & Co. had an office in Saffron Walden and their intention to open in Harlow and Cambridge on 1 January 1947.
Richard began to do some work in the Benten, Price & Bailey office in the school holidays in 1956 when he was 11 years old. Everything was manual in those days and he remembered that even in the early 1960s when he commenced his articles in the City, the only aids they had were an abacus and slide-rule.
Richard can remember that they would often go to clients at the weekend to have lunch and enjoy the day with them. One of the firm’s clients was the farming family, the Everetts. There was no electricity on the farm and the toilet facilities were outside. He could also remember playing tennis with one of the client’s family and that presents such as a chicken were sometimes given to his father.
Richard would say later, ‘Leslie Benten did not like the effort being put into Harlow and Cambridge and went off to Saffron Walden to set up a new L.H. Benten & Co.’
The firm was renamed Price Bailey and Partners. Don Holledge and Stan Trow were appointed partners. Holledge did not stay long. These were the terms of the Dissolution agreement signed by Holledge, Reg Bailey, Stanley Price and Stan Trow on 23 November 1960:
2. The Purchasers agree to purchase the share and interest of Outgoing Partner in the goodwill of the said business from the Thirtieth day of September One thousand nine hundred and sixty at the price of Six thousand eight hundred and fifty six pounds together with such sum as may stand to the credit of the Outgoing Partner on capital account on the said Thirtieth day of September One thousand nine hundred and sixty after debiting him with any liabilities for taxation.
3.The said purchase money shall be satisfied in manner following namely – Partly by the Purchasers securing the release of the Outgoing Partner from the sum of One thousand five hundred pounds owing by the Outgoing Partner to the Century Insurance Company Limited together with the release by the Century Insurance Company of the policy of One thousand five hundred pounds on the life of the Outgoing Partner – Partly by the Purchasers securing the release of the Outgoing Partner from the sum of Two thousand six hundred pounds owing by the Outgoing Partner to Leslie Herbert Benten – Partly by the Covenant of the Purchasers to pay the Outgoing Partner the balance of the said purchase money namely the sum of Two thousand seven hundred and fifty six pounds and the amount standing to his credit on capital account as aforesaid by eighty equal quarterly instalments commencing on the First day of January One thousand nine hundred and sixty one with interest on the balance for the time being unpaid at the rate of one per cent above Bank Rate such covenant to be contained in a Deed of Covenant to be executed by the Purchasers.[The sums of money mentioned need to be multiplied by 30 to see what they were in today’s terms]
Following Holledge’s departure a new agreement was drawn up with Stan Trow which also included Tom Parkin,
WHEREAS :
1. Mr Price, Mr Bailey, Donald Arthur Holledge and Mr Trow have heretofore carried on the profession of Accountants at Bishop’s Stortford in the County of Hertford (hereinafter called ‘the Stortford Practice’)____
2. Mr Price has heretofore carried on the profession of an Accountant at Harlow in the County of Essex (hereinafter called ‘the Harlow Practice’)____
3. Mr Bailey has heretofore carried on the profession of an Accountant in the Town and County of Cambridge (hereinafter called ‘the Cambridge Practice’)____
4. The parties have hereto agreed to amalgamate the Stortford, Harlow and Cambridge Practices as from the First day of October One thousand nine hundred and sixty____
5. The Stortford Practice is subject to a Mortgage in favour of The Century Insurance Company Limited to secure the sum of Six thousand four hundred and seventy five pounds and the Harlow Practice is subject to a Mortgage in favour of The Century Insurance Company Limited to secure the sum of One thousand pounds____
6. It is proposed to secure the said sums of Six thousand four hundred and seventy five pounds and One thousand pounds together with the further advance of Six thousand five hundred and twenty five pounds hereinafter mentioned on the new firm____
NOW IT IS HEREBY AGREED as follows:
1. As a result of the amalgamation of the Stortford Practice, the Harlow Practice and the Cambridge Practice as from the First day of October One thousand nine hundred and sixty Mr Bailey owes Mr Price the sum of Four thousand nine hundred and thirty seven pounds ten shillings and Mr Trow owes Mr Price the sum of Six thousand six hundred and eighty seven pounds ten shillings____
2. The parties hereto will enter into Articles of Partnership in the form of the draft already initialled by them____
3. Tom Parkin (hereinafter called ‘Mr Parkin’) at present employed by the Harlow Practice will be admitted to the new firm as soon as he has qualified as a Chartered Accountant Mr Price agreeing to sell him a ten per cent interest in the profits of the new firm for Two thousand and fifty pounds Mr Trow agreeing to sell him a seven and a half per cent interest in the profits of the new firm for Five thousand two hundred and eighty seven pounds ten shillings____
4. A further advance of Six thousand five hundred and twenty five pounds shall be raised from The Century Insurance Company Limited on the security of the new firm making a total advance of Fourteen thousand pounds and the said sum of Six thousand five hundred and twenty five pounds shall be applied as to Four thousand nine hundred and thirty seven pounds ten shillings in satisfaction of the amount due from Mr Bailey to Mr Price and as to One thousand five hundred and eighty seven pounds ten shillings in part satisfaction of the amount due from Mr Trow to Mr Price leaving a balance of Five thousand one hundred pounds due from Mr Trow to Mr Price____
5. On the sale by Mr Trow to Mr Parkin of a seven and a half per cent share in the profits of the new firm the purchase money of Five thousand two hundred and eighty seven pounds ten shillings be applied in satisfaction of any sum then due from Mr Trow to Mr Price____
6. Until the said sum of Five thousand one hundred pounds have been satisfied Mr Trow agrees to pay Mr Price or to his personal representatives the said sum of Five thousand one hundred pounds by eighty equal quarterly instalments on the First day of January the First day of April the First day of July and the First day of October in each year the first of such quarterly payments to be made on the First day of January One thousand nine hundred and sixty one together with interest on the balance for the time being remaining unpaid at the rate of one per cent above Bank Rate for the time being in force until the whole of the said sums and interest as aforesaid shall be fully paid____
HAYTERS
While Stanley Price was helping to build up Price Bailey, he also became an adviser and non-executive financial director of Hayters which became one of Bishop’s Stortford’s leading manufacturing companies.
Hayters had been founded by Douglas Hayter in 1946. This is how he told the story of its beginnings:
In the hot summer of 1946 I needed to clear my builder’s yard in Spellbrook on the Hertfordshire-Essex border, which was overgrown with grass. I had no mower of my own so I borrowed a friend’s cutter bar machine. It was hopeless and I spent more time repairing it than cutting grass. I decided to build a mower myself.
This first rotary mower was the foundation of Hayters which became THE name in world-class rotary mowers. To research the first machine, Douglas Hayter went to the Science Museum in London where he found records of a rotary machine powered by a horse. He combined a second-hand, two-stroke engine with various bits and pieces from under his workshop bench. He used a dustbin lid to guard the blade! Within 24 hours the Hayter rotary mower was ready for testing. It was so effective that a neighbour asked Hayter to make one for him and that is how Hayters started.
Kim Macfie with the famous Hayter rotary mower. Both Stanley and Richard Price served as Finance Director and helped Hayters achieve great success.
Hayters’ Orchard Mower, exhibited at the Royal Smithfield Show at Earl’s Court in 1950.
By the mid-1960s Hayters was turning over £1 million (over £25 million in today’s money) and by the early 1980s was a public company with sales of £6 million (about £30 million in today’s money) and profits of £750,000 (nearly £4 million). The prospectus for a placement of shares said of Stanley Price’s role:
Mr S Price, aged 64, is a non-executive Finance Director. He is the senior partner in a local firm of Chartered Accountants, and he has advised the company since incorporation. He fulfils the usual duties of a non-executive director and, in particular, advises on finance and accounting matters.
When Stanley Price retired from Price Bailey in 1982, he also retired as non-executive Finance Director of Hayters and Douglas Hayter said of his long service:
Stanley Price has been connected with Hayters since the company’s formation in November 1946. He was appointed a non-executive director in 1953 and has played an invaluable role in directing the financial affairs of the company over the years.
The press release announcing Stanley Price’s retirement went on to say that he would be succeeded by his son Richard Price:
