Genius who transformed City ‘bible’
Tributes to Padraic Fallon, giant of financial publishing, who’s died at 66
PADRAIC FALLON, a creative genius who transformed financial publishing in the UK, has died.
The death of Mr Fallon, 66, after a long battle with cancer will be felt by all those who knew him in the financial world and beyond.
He turned the magazine Euromoney into a City ‘bible’ and a FTSE250 company with a market value of just under £1billion and a turnover of £363million a year.
The empire he built spanned 100 specialist magazines in finance, aviation, pharmaceuticals and law. The titles became must-reads for bankers, lawyers and financial analysts across the globe.
In recent times Mr Fallon and his team smartly embraced the digital revolution and developed what has become known as ‘ data mining’, websites with unique access to business information.
His passing followed a year-long fight against cancer. With typical foresight he made sure that a proper succession structure was in place so the work he had done on increasing the reach of Euromoney to every corner of the world could continue.
Richard Ensor, his successor as chairman of Euromoney, said: ‘Padraic was a terrific colleague and author of what we have come to call the Euromoney style.
‘He was always concerned that proper English was used in everything that was published. He is going to be an enormous loss.’
Patrick Sergeant, who founded Euromoney in 1969 and was City editor of the Daily Mail, asked Mr Fallon to move from the Mail to Euromoney to become editor in 1974.
He said: ‘ Apart from starting the magazine in 1969, it was the best thing I ever did for Euromoney.’ Mr Fallon skilfully managed to make the transition from financial journalism at the Mail to running a business, a rare achievement.
He rose to managing director of Euromoney Institutional Investor in 1985 and became its chairman in 1992.
He was also a director of DMGT, publishers of the Daily Mail, and holder of a 68 per cent stake in the media empire he ran.
Padraic Fallon was born in Ireland, one of six sons of the Irish poet of the same name famed for his radio plays including Diarmuid and Grainne.
He was educated at St Peter’s College, Wexford, and Blackrock College before going on to Trinity College, Dublin, where he earned an honours degree in Business Studies and an MA.
Mr Fallon began his journalism career at Thomson Newspapers, moving on to the Mirror and then the City pages of the Mail.
At heart he was always a journalist, a stickler for good writing and author of the Euromoney style guide, which provided a model for generations of reporters.
His own contribution to business writing was recognised when he won a Wincott Special Award for outstanding financial journalism in 1981, an achievement of which he was immensely proud.
Mr Fallon’s writing was not confined to journalism and he produced two literary volumes in later life, A Hymn of the Dawn in 2003 and The Circles of Archimedes, published in 2009.
Colleagues recall with affection his cigar-chomping company and conversations, in which he would switch freely from business to Irish poetry. Mr Fallon was an enthusiastic fly fisherman and shooter.
He also liked to play tennis even though his skills were, as one friend put it, ‘less developed’.
For many years his favourite eaterie was the Savoy Grill, but after the legendary restaurant fell under the control of Gordon Ramsay he preferred to give it a miss.
A hard-working manager, Mr Fallon never lost his love for journalism, for free markets or the financial world, although his beliefs were sorely tested after the failure of Lehman Brothers in 2008.
But Mr Fallon, Euromoney and its offshoots bounced back and remain the bible of the bankers.
At last week’s International Monetary Fund meetings in Tokyo, bankers seized on the latest edition of Euromoney with enthusiasm.
In the best traditions of the reporting he helped pioneer, a small team produced a series of scoops for the daily journal of IMF meetings, Emerging Markets – a title fittingly owned by Euromoney.
Padraic Fallon is survived by wife Gillian, a son and three daughters.