Ginger and Pickles
IN the drawer of Sir Anthony Burney's desk was a copy of Beatrix Potter's Ginger and Pickles. I thought of it when I heard the news of his death. I had given it him when he became chairman of Debenhams, and he called it the best book on retailing ever written. Ginger the cat and Pickles the terrier kept a shop which was ruined by giving uncontrolled credit. ('Samuel Whis- kers has run up a bill as long as his tail.') Tony Burney believed in the primacy of cash, had watched seemingly flourishing businesses fail for lack of it, and once wrote a book about it, ending: 'Let us then resolve to make money, and leave the auditors to decide what is profit.' It was a disrespectful attitude to the canons of accountancy, and unexpected in the senior partner of the big accountancy firm of Binder Hamlyn, but his original mind was as always at work. It brought him into public duties and onto big company boards. He had thought out what a non- executive director must do, and wore several chairmen's scalps to prove it. His own big-company chairmanship gave him charge of a sleepy federation of old- established and old-fashioned department stores, still run as the independent baro- nies they once were. He knew that he must hurry to shake Debenhams into coherence before a bidder came along offering to do it for him. In the event he just had time — and his defence of Debenhams against the UDS bid is a classic. It occurred to him that Debenhams' customers were also its share- holders. He sent every one of them a record, talking mildly to them: 'My name is Anthony Burney....' They formed up with him, they defied the intruders, and when it was all over, his advisers gave a party for him and solemnly presented him with a golden disc. One phrase of his served to change the whole climate of opinion on takeovers. It was a time when the dealmak- ers were paramount, priding themselves on being adept at the takeover game, with shares as their counters — just as com- panies are now said to be put into play. Burney rebuked them in a sentence: 'This is not a game.' It was well said then, and should be remembered now.
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