Who is Sir John Parker? (chief negotiator for the Dubai/US port deal)

[NVMojo]

Deal-doer who sold an empire

Sir John Parker, negotiator par excellence, has outdone even himself with the £3.9 bn sale of P&O to Dubai Ports, doubling its value. But he decries the xenophobia that emerged during the sale and tells Frank Kane why foreign ownership is no bad thing

Sunday February 19, 2006
The Observer


Sir John Parker, as much as any P&O shareholder at the emotional meeting last week that signed away a century of corporate history, has a sentimental attachment to the company. 'One of the first ships I ever worked on was a P&O ship, the Canberra, when I was a young naval architect,' he says nostalgically.
There is genuine regret in his voice as he speaks of the sale of P&O to Dubai Ports - despite the fact he managed to more than double the value of the company by orchestrating an international auction that eventually fetched £3.9 billion. It was as shrewd a bit of deal-doing as the City has witnessed in many years.

'I didn't join P&O as chairman in order to sell it, but we looked at ways of expanding organically and couldn't find anything to buy,' he says. 'All the good stuff is owned by governments or by companies much bigger than ourselves. And at the end of the day we had a clear fiduciary duty and a very good offer. I am very honoured to have been chairman of such a great company.'

The sale ends a process that began in 2000, when the more glamorous P&O cruise business was sold to the giant American company Carnival. What remained was a string of 29 port terminals spanning the globe, a vestige of a British imperial past when P&O ruled the waves - and the docks - of the world.

snip...

With P&O sold, the 64-year-old from Northern Ireland has some time on his hands. 'I'll draw breath, rather than take a rest,' he says. He still has jobs at the Carnival cruise business, his chairmanship of National Grid, and his position as senior non-executive of the Bank of England. But he will now have a couple of days a week to spare for something else.

more...

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,1712692,00.html

[Swamp Rat]

1. Who the fuck is he to sell OUR port in New Orleans to Arab terrorists? n/t

:mad:

[NVMojo]

3. exactly, note this story broke in England just before the US found out

[NVMojo]

2. news that broke in England just before the US found out about port deal

P&O board accused of sell-out as sale agreed
By Alistair Osborne, Business Editor (Filed: 14/02/2006)


P&O's big City investors have overwhelmingly voted through the £3.92billion sale of the iconic British company to Dubai's DP World despite a last hurrah from mutinous retail shareholders.

In a sometimes stormy meeting at the Wembley Conference Centre, irate retail investors ganged up to accuse the P&O board of selling out to "Johnny Foreigner".


P&O operated in 19 countries with only 8pc of its profits in Britain
First on his feet was Captain David Hawker, who quickly set a jingoistic tone. "I'm astounded at the ignorance of so many in the business world over understanding the lessons of history. It was after all seafarers who built the British Empire.

"Now I see every business in this country seems to have one object only - to sell out to Johnny Foreigner. If this board couldn't run this business successfully, why didn't you say so."

more...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/02/14/cnpno14.xml&menuId=242&sSheet=/money/2006/02/14/ixcitytop.html

[Hubert Flottz]

4. What Sir John Parker meant was this...

Money isn't everything, but it's way ahead of whatever is in first place! The Bank of England and connected international superbanker thugs, helped cause the great depression in the US and the Bush family made money off of that too.

http://www.tarpley.net/bush2.htm

http://www.tarpley.net/bush3.htm

Bush is a fear president

The US president is determined to use national anxiety to his advantage, Albert Scardino and John Scardino observe

Wednesday March 24, 2004


Fear has had a cabinet position in two of the most radical presidencies in American history, those of Franklin Roosevelt and the current Bush. Spain has known similar fear at similar times, but the Spanish response has been a mirror image of the American reaction.

Roosevelt devoted his time in office to management of fear, from the economic horror of the Depression, through the massacre of 3,000 soldiers and sailors at Pearl Harbor, to the invasion at Normandy. Bush has chosen to manage by fear, through a simpler war of his own making, against an enemy that is little more than a gang of murderous thugs.


Article continues

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1177007,00.html

Your views on Bush and fear

http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedback/story/0,,1177934,00.html

[C_U_L8R]

5. Someone who needs to see Buckaroo Bonzai ?

(sorry... just some early eighties weirdness)

[Montagnard]

6. Sir John Parker Very Interesting

http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,156681,00.jpg



Age: 62.

Career: Parker is a former chairman and chief executive of Lattice, the gas transmission part of British Gas that merged with National Grid, to form National Grid Transco. He was appointed non-executive chairman of National Grid Transco in 2002. He was chairman and chief executive of Babcock International, the engineer, from 1993 to 2000 and chairman of Firth Rixson, another engineer, from 2001 to 2003. Between 1993 and 2002 he served as a non-executive director of GKN, which undertook an asset swap with Brambles Industries in August 2001 and from 2001 to 2002 he was a non-executive director of Brambles. He joined P&O Princess Cruises, which was demerged from P&O and subsequently bought by Carnival, in 2000. He is also the chairman of RMC, the building materials company in the process of a merger with Cemex, of Mexico. Parker also worked for Harland & Wolff , the Belfast-based shipbuilder, the British Shipbuilders Corporation and British Coal




I knew I had heard of Princess Cruises they owned the boats FEMA rent in NO for Katrina

Contract Value:
$192,000,000 through FEMA, plus $44,000,000 in "passthrough" expenses

Carnival Cruise Lines is owned by the Carnival Corporation, the largest cruise operator in the world. Carnival Cruise Lines was formed in 1972 by Ted Arison and made its IPO 15 years later. The capital provided by the sale of stock allowed Carnival to begin its acquisitions under the Carnival Corporation, formed in 1993 – over the past 14 years, Carnival has acquired the premium Holland America Line (which brought with it Windstar Cruises and Holland America Tours), the luxury Seabourn Cruise Line, Europe’s leading cruise line, Costa Cruises, and the premium operator Cundard Line. Most recently, Carnival Corporation merged with P&O Princess Cruises plc, creating a company with 12 cruise lines and 66 ships capable of holding more than 100,000 people."
Source: Carnival Cruise Lines Website

http://www.taxpayer.net/budget/katrinaspending/contracts/carnival.htm

[cal04]

7. more on Sir John Parker

SIR JOHN PARKER is to take over from P&O's long-serving chairman Lord Sterling of Plaistow in May, the shipping group announced yesterday. Sir John is currently the chairman of National Grid Transco and RMC. He is a former chairman and chief executive of the Belfast-based shipbuilder Harland & Wolff and the engineer Babcock International.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20041203/ai_n12819944


In tomorrow's Times, the paper publishes The Times Power 100 rankings, revealing who really holds the power in the highest echelons of British business. Heading up this year's list at number one is Maarten van den Bergh, the most powerful man working in British business today. Now in its third year, The Times Power 100 stands out from other lists that name the great and the good as the results are not based on subjective opinions of judges, peers or a self-defining electorate. Instead the market decides who is in The Times Power 100.

The Times Power 100 - 2004
10. Sir John Parker
http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:dAyXCP0lu1AJ:www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release%3Fid%3D157751++Sir+John+Parker&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=107

Court of the Bank of England
Court’s role is to manage the Bank of England’s affairs, other than the formulation of monetary policy. The Bank of England Act 1998 provides for Court to determine the Bank’s objectives and strategy, to ensure the effective discharge of the Bank’s functions and, subject to that, to ensure the most efficient use of the Bank’s resources.

The Act creates a sub-committee of non-executive directors, known as NedCo, with statutory responsibilities for keeping the Bank’s performance under review. The Chancellor appoints one non-executive director as chair of NedCo and the current chair is Sir John Parker. The chair of NedCo earns a remuneration of £12,000 a year, chairs of the various sub-committees earn £9,000 a year and a non-executive director earns £6,000 a year. Appointments to Court are made by the Queen.

Sir John Parker 1 June 2004 National Grid Transco Non-Executive Director
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/Documents/UK_Economy/Royal_Mint_Advisory_Committee/ukecon_mint_appoint.cfm

Strategic Advisory Panel
Sir John Parker

Sir John Parker is Chairman of National Grid plc (October 2000) and Chairman of the P&O Group Plc (May 2005). He is Senior Non Executive Director of the Court of the Bank of England (March 2005) and a Non Executive Director of Carnival plc and Carnival Inc (2003). Sir John has also been Non-executive Director of the Industrial Development Board of Northern Ireland 1983-1986, British Coal Corporation 1986-1993, GKN plc 1993-2002, Brambles Industries plc 2001-2003. Chairman of Firth Rixson plc 1999-2003, and Non-executive Director and subsequently Deputy Chairman of P&O Princess Cruises plc 2000-2003. He was Chairman of RMC Group from 2002 and led the Group’s transformation and agreed sale to Cemex of Mexico in 2005. He was appointed Deputy Chairman of P&O in February 2005.

Sir John is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and a recipient of honorary doctorates from a number of universities in the UK and Ireland. He was President of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects (1978-1980) and Prime Warden of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights (2000-2001) and an Honorary Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Fuellers. He is a governor of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and a member of the General Committee of Lloyds Register of Shipping. He leads the Young Offenders into Work programme, serves on the Defence Academy Advisory Board and is a Member of the Government’s Asia Task Force. He was knighted in 2001 for Services to the Defence and Shipbuilding Industries.

http://www.thenationalbusinessawards.com/regionals/pages/about/sap/9_parker.htm

[NVMojo]

8. damn, he sounds like a henchman for the Carlyle Group!

[autorank]

9. He's so sorry...all the way to the bank!

It's all good John Parker, isn't it. You sell out your company to a bunch of despots. Wonderful for you but we're now screwed...but this won't stand. Hey Parker, hope you got your money in cash.