Sir Gordon Brunton
Shrewd businessman and racehorse owner who ran Roy Thomson’s empire and cut costs at Sotheby’s
SIR GORDON BRUNTON, who has died aged 95, was chief executive of the Thomson Organisation during its ownership of Times Newspapers and its diversification into holiday travel and North Sea oil; he was also chairman of Sotheby’s auction house.
Brunton was a key lieutenant to the Canadian tycoon Roy Thomson (1st Lord Thomson of Fleet) from 1961 until the latter’s death in 1976, and continued to work under Kenneth Thomson, the second baron, until 1984. Thomson senior was by his own description a “roughneck” who made his fortune in Canadian newspapers and radio stations before arriving in Britain in 1954 as proprietor of The Scotsman. He went on to buy the Kemsley newspaper group, including The Sunday Times, in 1959, and to add The Times to his portfolio in 1967. Gordon Brunton was managing director and chief executive of all Thomson’s publishing and other interests from 1968, often acting as the bridge between the proprietor and the management of the businesses below.
That placed him in a difficult position in 1979, when Times Newspapers – burdened by frequent production disputes and rising losses – forced a confrontation with print unions which caused the papers to cease publication for almost a year. Having initially encouraged the strategy, Brunton formed the view – after an attempt to arrange printing of the papers in Frankfurt had failed – that the stand-off must be brought to an end.
He delivered the message that Thomson was “not prepared to foot the bill any longer” and was accused by more hawkish colleagues of “waving the white flag”. By the time the stoppage ended in November 1979, it had cost £46 million and was seen as a disaster for the company. Another strike by journalists in 1980 proved the last straw for Kenneth Thomson, who decided to sell. He entrusted the task to Brunton, who conducted much of the secret negotiation that followed from his own home.
Many potential bids emerged, including consortia led by the editors William Rees-mogg of The Times and Harry Evans of The Sunday Times; also showing interest were Robert Maxwell, Sir James Goldsmith and Tiny Rowland. But Brunton’s clear preference was for a deal with Rupert Murdoch, whom he had observed at close quarters and regarded as tough but straight and committed to preserving both titles.
Though Lord Rothermere’s Associated Newpapers were prepared to offer more, Brunton did not believe The Times would be safe in their hands. Accordingly, he pushed through a sale to Murdoch in January 1981, against the opinions of many who thought Murdoch unsuitable, for the modest price of £12 million.
Gordon Charles Brunton was born in the East End of London on December 27 1921 into a theatrical family; his father was a box office manager and his paternal grandparents were Victorian actor-comedians. After Gordon’s parents divorced when he was five, his mother married a Belgian who funded Gordon’s education at private schools, including Cranleigh.
He went on to study economics at the LSE – where he came under the influence of the socialist thinker Harold Laski – but his studies were curtailed by war service. Commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1942, he was transferred to the Indian Army, serving as a captain in the Burma campaign. At the end of the war he was attached to the British Military Government in Düsseldorf and Hamburg to work on the rebuilding of infrastructure.
On demobilisation, Brunton returned to evening classes to complete his degree at the LSE and sold advertising space in trade magazines for Tothill, part of Odhams Press. At 35 he became a director of Tothill – and soon afterwards left to run a venture making toys and games, which failed. But he had made his mark and in 1961 he was called back by Odhams’ chairman, the former Reuters chief Sir Christopher Chancellor, to be groomed for the group’s managing directorship.
Odhams had recently been in merger talks with the Thomson Organisation, but fell instead to a takeover by the Mirror group. Chancellor told Roy Thomson he had been unlucky to lose Odhams but “shouldn’t lose this young man”, Brunton, who was duly recruited as managing director of Thomson Publications, and became a director of the Thomson Organisation in 1963. If the newspaper side of the business provided much of the drama of Brunton’s years with Thomson, it was his diversification strategy which made it a stronger business overall.
In 1965 the group launched Yellow Pages telephone directories and – on Brunton’s recommendation, against strong internal opposition – ventured into a field that was well outside the group’s previous experience. This was the new world of package holidays catering for the British consumer’s increased spending power and willingness to go abroad. Thomson’s commercial advantage was that brochures could be printed on its own presses, and holidays advertised to millions of prospective customers through Thomson newspapers and magazines; the bet paid off, and Thomson Holidays rapidly emerged as a market leader.
In 1970 it was Roy Thomson himself who decided to gamble on North Sea oil – in partnership with the American oilmen Armand Hammer and J Paul Getty, who needed a partner with the connections that Thomson’s Scottish media interests offered. It was Brunton who devised a structure to protect existing Thomson Organisation interests against the risk that the oil venture would fail; but when drilling commenced it struck rich, providing ample cash flows for the group’s continued expansion.
Brunton remained chief executive of Thomson’s international and UK arms until 1984, while building a portfolio of other interests. He was flattered to be asked to join the board of Sotheby’s in 1978 – “It was like being asked to join the Guards” – but found its proceedings distinctly unbusinesslike: “If you said. ‘What’s the plan here? How much does it cost? They’d look at you … as if you were farting in church.’ ”
In the early 1980s over-expansion in New York and elsewhere, combined with strong competition from Christie’s, led to falling profits – and headlines asking “Is Sotheby’s in trouble?” Brunton was asked to take over as chairman in 1982, and began by producing a damning report on the recent leadership of the auction house. “Though affable in manner,” wrote the firm’s historian, “Brunton was capable of charging like a rhinoceros … pursuing his goals with intimidating force.”
He duly instigated management changes and £8 million worth of cost cuts. But the share price remained depressed, leaving the firm ripe for a takeover bid – which arrived, in April 1983, from two American entrepreneurs, Marshall Cogan and Stephen Swid, who had made their fortunes in office furniture and carpet-underlay.
Brunton declared that “these people are totally unacceptable” and threw himself into a defence which presented Sotheby’s as part of the national heritage – and secured a reference to the Monopolies Commission which effectively stymied the bid. But when a “white knight” was found, in the shape of the cash-rich US real estate tycoon Alfred Taubman, reservations about a foreign buyer were swiftly set aside. On completion of the deal, Taubman succeeded Brunton in the chair.
In the 1980s Brunton was also a non-executive director of Cable & Wireless and its subsidiary Mercury Communications, and in later years he was chairman of Galahad Gold, a venture launched by the investor Jim Slater. Among many voluntary roles, Brunton was president of the Periodical Publishers Association and the National Advertising Benevolent Society; chairman of the Independent Adoption Service; a member of the Arts Council’s South Bank board and the council of Business in the Community; and a governor of the LSE. He was knighted in 1985.
Another observer wrote of Brunton that he possessed “the gambling streak that goes with enterprise and which, in his case, found another outlet in racehorse owning”. He was a successful breeder at his North Munstead stud in Surrey and among his notable winners was Indian Queen in the 1991 Ascot Gold Cup. He was chairman of the Racing Post from 1985 to 1997.
He married first, in 1946, Nadine Sohr; they had two sons (one of whom died in infancy) and two daughters. The marriage was dissolved and he married secondly, in 1966, Gillian Kirk, with whom he had a son and a daughter.
Sir Gordon Brunton, born December 27 1921, died May 30 2017