Timothy Charles "Tim" Parker is Chairman of the National Trust. He is also Chairman of the Post Office, and Chairman of Samsonite International SA. He is a member of the UK Advisory Board of CVC Capital Partners and a Trustee of the Royal Academy of Music. His career has been controversial and he gained the nickname the 'Prince of Darkness' for his reputation for cutting jobs.
Private life
Tim Parker was educated at Abingdon School and Pembroke College, Oxford, where he was Chairman of the Oxford University Labour Club. He holds an M.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford, and an MSc. in Business Studies from the London Business School. He worked for a short spell as an economist in HM Treasury, and later joined the Thorn EMI Group, PA, to Sir William Barlow, Chairman of the Engineering Group. At the age of 26, Parker was appointed President of GD Blakeslee, a subsidiary of Thorn EMI in Chicago. Tim Parker lists his hobbies as playing the flute, collecting art and running. He also owns the British Pathé Film Archive, perhaps the foremost 20th-century film record in the English language. He is married and has four children.
Career
On his return from the US in 1983, Parker became managing director of Crypto Peerless, a Birmingham company manufacturing foodservice equipment. In 1986, he was appointed CEO of Kenwood Appliances, and in 1989 completed a leveraged buyout of the business, backed by Candover Partners. The company was purchased for £54m and subsequently listed on London Stock Exchange in 1992 at a valuation of £104m. In 1996, Parker was appointed CEO of Clarks Shoes, the leading non-athletic shoe brand in the world. During a period of six years the company was substantially reorganised, withdrawing from European manufacture, and reviving the Clarks brand with more up-to-date shoe styles. 20 factories were closed. Over this period, the profitability of the footwear business increased 150% and the company posted record results in 2002. In 2002, Parker moved to Kwik-Fit. Backed by CVC Capital Partners, he completed a £340m Management Buy-in from Ford, following a major restructuring of the business including 3,000 job losses, the operating profits increased by 250% in a two-year period. The business was sold to PAI in 2005 for £800m with Parker earning £20 million from the deal. During 2004, CVC and Permira purchased the AA from Centrica for £1.75 billion, and Parker was asked to become CEO. During the next two years, the business carried out a fundamental restructuring programme. Over 3,000 people lost their jobs but CVC doubled their money. EBITDA increased from £120m in 2004 to £305m in 2007. In 2007, the AA merged with Saga, at an enterprise value of £3.35 billion. Parker spent a very short period in 2008 as First Deputy Mayor of London, working with Boris Johnson. In late 2008, Parker became non-executive Chairman of the Samsonite Corporation, and the beginning of 2009, also CEO. The business was severely hit by the global credit crisis, profits declined sharply in 2009 to $53m from $148m the preceding year. Following a period of extensive restructuring, and investments in products and marketing, the company re-emerged much stronger, and in 2011 achieved record results of $250m. Also in 2011, the company successfully listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with a market capitalisation of $2 billion. Parker stepped down as CEO in September 2014, and remains non-executive chairman. In June 2017, the market capitalisation of the Group was around $6 billion. Tim Parker served on the Boards of three FTSE 100 companies: Legal and General, Alliance Boots and the Compass Group. From 2008 to 2011, he was Chairman of Nine Entertainment Group, the largest media business in Australia. He also served as Chairman of the Autobar Group from 2012 to 2014. He was Chairman of the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund and a non-executive director of CDC Group plc and was a board member of the Audit Commission, and also of the South West Regional Development Agency. Parker was appointed Chairman of the National Trust, a voluntary position in November 2014 and Chairman of HMCTS in April 2018.
Post Office controversy
In October 2015, Parker was appointed as Chairman of Post Office Limited. Parker took over part way through a scandal where over 1,000 subpostmasters were accused of false accounting when the Horizon accounting software showed a shortfall. When the subpostmasters sued the Post Office, under Parker's chairmanship, the Post Office refused to admit there were any problems and accused the judge of bias. The founder of Justice for Subpostmasters claimed the Post Office was desperate to defend "a board and executive which seems totally out of control and being allowed to run riot by its sole shareholder, the government." The Post Office later settled. Parker had been chair of the Post Office for four years at the time of the settlement. It is clear that the Post Office and, by extension, its directors and, by further extension, its Government-appointed directors must have been aware that the Horizon system was defective. Notwithstanding that, for over 20 years, the Post Office stubbornly and aggressively continued to assert that the system was fit for purpose. Many innocent sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses lost their livelihoods, some of them went bankrupt, some of them were prosecuted and, indeed, some of them were sent to prison. It is an absolutely scandalous tale. Parker has been ‘dubbed the Prince of Darkness’ for his reputation for slashing jobs. There is no evidence of his questioning the approach to the Horizon scandal. In early 2018 he cut his commitment to the Post Office by 75%.
