Andrew Regan (born 14 December 1965, in

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

) is a British-born

polar explorer This list is for recognised pioneering explorers of the polar regions. It does not include subsequent travelers and expeditions. Polar explorers * Jameson Adams * Mark Agnew * Stian Aker * Valerian Albanov * Roald Amundsen * Salomon August ...

and

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

. He is the

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

of Corvus Capital, an investment company.

Career

Hobson

Early in his career, Regan ran a household products business, Cadismark, which was sold to Hobson plc in 1991. Following the sale, he became the chief executive of Hobson, which was listed on the

London Stock Exchange The London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange based in London, England. the total market value of all companies trading on the LSE stood at US$3.42 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Paul's Cath ...

. In 1994, Hobson acquired F.E. Barber, the food and drinks manufacturing operation of the

Co-operative Wholesale Society A cooperative wholesale society (CWS) is a form of cooperative federation (that is, a cooperative in which all the members are cooperatives), in this case, the members are usually consumer cooperatives. The theory, practice and history of th ...

. Regan was responsible for developing the

Loyd Grossman Sir Loyd Daniel Gilman Grossman (born 16 September 1950) is an American-British author, broadcaster, musician, businessman and cultural campaigner who has mainly worked in the United Kingdom. He presented the BBC programme ''MasterChef (British T ...

range of sauces which were manufactured by F.E. Barber. After rationalising the operation, Hobson was acquired in 1996 by Hillsdown Holdings for £154 million, through a recommended cash

takeover In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are publicly listed, in contrast to the acquisi ...

Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS)

In 1997 Regan led an attempt to gain control of the CWS in a £1.2 billion take-over bid which was rejected. As part of its bid defence, the CWS carried out an investigation into former dealings between certain CWS executives and Regan. In 1995 Regan had authorised the transfer of £2.4 m from F.E. Barber which he maintained he provided to an intermediary as a brokerage fee for successfully resolving the deadlock between the CWS and Hobson in negotiations about extending a food supply contract; the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) maintained that the transfer was used by the intermediary to provide a bribe to two senior CWS executives in order to extend the contract. Regan's first trial resulted, in 2002, in a

hung jury A hung jury, also called a deadlocked jury, is a judicial jury that cannot agree upon a verdict after extended deliberation and is unable to reach the required unanimity or supermajority. A hung jury may result in the case being tried again. Thi ...

and a retrial was ordered. This retrial in 2003, ended when a juror alleged he was approached by an unknown party. At the second retrial (also in 2003), Regan was

acquitted In common law jurisdictions, an acquittal means that the criminal prosecution has failed to prove that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the charge presented. It certifies that the accused is free from the charge of an o ...

with the judge noting that he was minded to order the SFO to pay Regan's defence costs. In 2005, the Co-operative Group (successor to the CWS) received what it described as a "substantial payment" as part of an out-of-court settlement with Regan and others in a civil case relating to the accusations.

ASOS plc

Regan was the original financier behind the online fashion retailer ASOS plc, which is now the UK's largest independent online fashion retailer. As Seen on Screen, as it was then known at listing, was reversed into Brindle Limited, a shell company created by a consortium of fellow Monaco investors that included Nigel Robertson. The AIM listing raised only £255,000 (£95,000 after expenses) and had a market capitalisation of £12m when listed on the AIM Market in 2001, growing to £4.36bn in 2017.

Corvus Capital

Regan became the

of Corvus Capital, an international investment company, in 2004 - a position he still assumes. Corvus was established to identify assets or companies which are either underperforming or undervalued. The management team attempt to acquire or tactically reposition such companies in order to realise potential value. Corvus Capital, Inc. was listed in the UK on the

Alternative Investment Market AIM (formerly the Alternative Investment Market) is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange that was launched on 19 June 1995 as a replacement to the previous Unlisted Securities Market, Unlisted Securities Market (USM) that had been in opera ...

(AIM) before it was taken private in December 2008. Corvus founded Lodore Resources, an AIM-listed investment company formed in 2004 with the intention to build a group specialising in the oil and gas sector. The company listed with a market capitalisation of £6.4 million, and after building a group with its assets principally in the United States. In 2005 the company was acquired for a total consideration of £115.0 million. Other Corvus investments included, amongst others, Commoditrade and Gable Holdings. Regan has been involved in several start-up companies including Imperial Energy, an upstream oil and gas exploration and production company focused on the

Commonwealth of Independent States The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a regional organization, regional intergovernmental organization in Eurasia. It was formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It covers an ar ...

and, in particular, the

Russian Federation Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. The company was floated on AIM in 2004 at 25p per share and moved to the Official List in 2007. In 2008, Imperial was acquired by ONGC Videsh of India for £1.3 billion (1,125 pence per share).

Academia

In 2014, Regan was awarded a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

from

Oxford Brookes University Oxford Brookes University (OBU; formerly known as Oxford Polytechnic) is a public university, public university in Oxford, England. It is a new university, having received university status through the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. Th ...

's Faculty of Technology, Design and Environment. His thesis was "A system to predict the S&P 500 using a bio-inspired algorithm."

Polar travel

North Pole

Regan visited the Geographic North Pole for the first time in 2004. In April 2008 he returned, completing an expedition on foot with three of his children to raise awareness about climate change. His latest visit was in 2014, taking the total number of times he has reached the pole to three.

Ice Challenger 05

In 2005, he led the Ice Challenger Expedition, a

world record A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book ''Guinness World Records'' and other world records organizatio ...

attempt for the fastest overland crossing to the South Pole. The six-man Ice Challenger team completed the 1,200 km route in 69 hours, breaking the previous world record of 24 days (576 hours). The expedition aimed to increase awareness of

global warming Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes ...

. The entire team wanted to highlight the impact of climate change on the Antarctic, to the rest of the world.

Moon-Regan TransAntarctic Expedition

Regan returned to Antarctica in November 2010, leading the Moon Regan TransAntarctic Expedition. The 10-man expedition team completed the first ever there-and-back crossing of Antarctica, a journey of some 4,000 km, in 23 days. They travelled from Patriot Hills on the west coast to the South Pole, heading north from there through the Trans-Antarctic Mountains, down the

Leverett Glacier The Leverett Glacier () is about long and wide, flowing from the Antarctic Plateau to the south end of the Ross Ice Shelf through the Queen Maud Mountains. It is an important part of the South Pole Traverse from McMurdo Station to the Admundson ...

and off the coastline onto the

Ross Ice Shelf The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf of Antarctica (, an area of roughly and about across: about the size of France). It is several hundred metres thick. The nearly vertical ice front to the open sea is more than long, and between high ...

. Winston Wong, a prominent Taiwanese businessman and alumnus of

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

, was the main sponsor to the expedition. The Winston Wong Bio-Inspired Ice Vehicle was the lead vehicle in the expedition and was the first ever bio-fuelled vehicle to reach the Geographic South Pole. The WWBIV is currently on display at the Magic School for Green Technology at the National Cheng Kung University in Tainen. The expedition partnered with

, to carry out scientific experiments in Antarctica.

Personal life

Regan was born in Manchester and has eight children.

References

External links

Moon-Regan TransAntarcticExpedition WebsiteJunior Polar TravellerExpedition press
{{DEFAULTSORT:Regan, Andrew Living people 1965 births English chief executives British expatriates in Switzerland British people of Irish descent British online retailer founders Businesspeople from Manchester