page_title: Robert Clark (businessman)
section_title: Post-war
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Clark (businessman) / Post-war
caption_attribution_description: Bank of England, Threadneedle Street, London, England. English: The Bank of England in Threadneedle Street, London. Deutsch: Sitz der Bank von England in der Londoner Threadneedle Street.
context_page_description: Sir Robert Anthony "Bob" Clark DSC was a British naval officer and businessman. Clark attended King's College, Cambridge before leaving at the age of 18 to join the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during the Second World War. Discovered to be colour blind he was relegated to non-seagoing posts, a prospect he found unappealing. He volunteered for service with the Special Operations Executive and saw active service in Italy, first on amphibious missions and later as a liaison officer with partisans in the Piedmont Mountains. Clark was captured by the Germans, and was later awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his gallantry.
  A chance meeting after the war led to a position at the law firm of Slaughter & May, where he was soon made a partner. He switched career to become a merchant banker with Hill Samuel, where he developed an expertise in company mergers and acquisitions. Clark acted as chairman or director for numerous firms and sat on many governments bodies and committees. Clark met Robert Maxwell in 1969 when Maxwell attempted to outbid Rupert Murdoch for the News of the World, starting a lifelong acquaintance.
context_section_description: Clark intended to move to Sudan after the war but a chance meeting with his old commanding officer, Hilary Scott, in St James's led to him being offered a position as a clerk at the law firm of Slaughter & May. Clark later said of the meeting: "I knew nothing about the law, but I accepted. And luck worked."  He proved to be skilled at arranging mergers of companies and within six years of joining the firm was made a partner, at the age of 29 years.  At Slaughter & May, Clark worked exclusively for the firm's merchant bank clients and was involved in the bitter takeover of Millspaugh by Hadfield.  In 1957 Clark became a director of Marchwiel Holdings, better known as Alfred McAlpine the civil engineering firm, and would remain on their board until 1996.
  Through his work Clark became acquainted with the partners of the Philip Hill, Higginson, Erlanders merchant bank (later known as Hill Samuel), one of the two largest in the country. The three men were all over  6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) tall, "frightfully clever" and looking for a fourth partner.  Clark, a tall man himself, fitted their apparent criteria and in 1961 accepted the fourth partnership at the bank; he retired from his partnership at Slaughter & May on 30 September 1961. At Hill Samuel he headed the issues and mergers department and advised on some of the largest company mergers in British history. Clark handled the General Electric Company plc's takeovers of Associated Electrical Industries and English Electric under Arnold Weinstock, and the expansions of Racal, Beecham Group and Courtaulds. He also worked to win the firm business abroad. In 1967 he acted for the Astor family in the sale of The Times newspaper to Lord Thomson of Fleet. With the parties deadlocked and the final price disputed by £50,000, Clark successfully reached an agreement by flipping a coin.  He correctly called the fall and won the Astors the additional £50,000.  Clark kept the half-crown he had used as a memento and had it mounted on a silver stand. Clark helped to draft the 1968 City Takeover Code that remains in force and regulates how takeovers are carried out in British companies. He chaired the National Film Finance Corporation from 1969 to 1976 and sat on a committee to represent Rolls-Royce's creditors during the nationalisation process. Clark worked with Robert Maxwell when he attempted to purchase the News of the World in 1969.  Maxwell was beaten by his rival, Rupert Murdoch (whom Clark sued for libel during the course of the bid), but became friends with Clark and retained him as banker to his British Printing Corporation.
  Clark chaired the government's Industrial Development Advisory Board from 1973 to 1980. In this position he found himself frustrated by Secretary of State for Industry Tony Benn's decision to ignore the board's advice and found workers' co-operative schemes at struggling firms Triumph Engineering and Fisher-Bendix in the early 1970s. Clark decided not to resign but to stay on and try to restrain Benn in the future. Benn bore him no ill-will for this and in 1974 asked him to join the government committee into the future of ailing car-makers Austin and British Leyland. He agreed to take the chair of Leyland in 1976 as a stop-gap measure but ended up holding the post for more than a year before the company, beset with strikes, nationalised and he handed the chair to Michael Edwardes. Clark remained a board member and in 1986 undertook discussions with General Motors in an attempt to get an increased bid for Leyland Vehicles, a bid later stopped by public outcry over the inclusion of the Land Rover name.
  Clark became chairman of Hill Samuel Bank in 1974, a post he would hold until 1987. He was knighted on 10 February 1976, receiving the honour from the Queen at Buckingham Palace, and became a director of the Bank of England on 4 June, following the death of Sir John Norman Valette Duncan. He was subsequently reappointed director for the four-year terms beginning 1 March 1977 and 1 March 1981.
  Clark was appointed chief executive officer of the Hill Samuel holding
caption: Bank of England headquarters
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