James Allan McColl
OBE (born 22 December 1951)
[ ] is a Scottish businessman who is the chairman and chief executive officer of
Clyde Blowers. He was a member of the
Council of Economic Advisors.
In 2007, he was placed tenth on the ''
Sunday Times Rich List'' in Scotland. The ''
Daily Record'' reported in November 2008 that McColl had overtaken
Tom Hunter as "Scotland's richest man" with an estimated fortune of £800million.
In 2021, ''The Sunday Times Rich List'' estimated his fortune at £1 billion.
Biography
The son of a butcher, McColl was born and raised in
Carmunnock,
a small village outside
East Kilbride,
and educated at
Rutherglen Academy.
He left school at 16 to take up an
engineering apprenticeship with
Weir Pumps of
Cathcart, Glasgow. After gaining
City & Guilds certificates at lower and higher level,
[ ] he gained a BSc Degree in Technology and Business Studies at
Strathclyde University. He returned to Weir Pumps in 1978, studying during the next three years for an
MBA.
McColl joined Diamond Power Speciality Ltd in 1981, an engineering company supplying equipment to the power industry worldwide; during his tenure he studied part-time for a master's degree in International Accounting and Finance.
Head-hunted by
Coopers & Lybrand, in 1985 he became a consultant, working with companies in financial difficulties that needed guidance. The following year he left Coopers to become a self-employed "company doctor", during which he made money through two successful turnarounds.
Clyde Blowers
In 1992, McColl paid £1million to buy 29.9% of family-owned engineering company
Clyde Blowers plc;
the company was then losing money on a turnover of £4million, but had a full listing 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 ...
. After he took the company private and increased his holding to 70% in 2001,
over the following five years Clyde Blowers bought six of its eight major competitors, and now has a 55% global market share of its original core business in
blower manufacture. In May 2007, Clyde Blowers bought Weir Pumps from
Weir Group plc, the company at which McColl had started his career. In September 2008, McColl led a team which enabled Clyde Blowers to acquire the entire Fluid & Power Division of
Fortune 500
The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune (magazine), Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States Joint-stock company#Closely held corporations and publicly traded corporations, corporations by ...
multi-industry company
Textron
Textron Inc. is an American industrial Conglomerate (company), conglomerate based in Providence, Rhode Island. Textron's subsidiaries include Arctic Cat, Bell Textron, Kautex, Textron Aviation (which itself includes the Beechcraft and Cessna b ...
, in a deal worth over $1 billion.
Clyde Blowers presently consists of 85 companies in 27 different countries, employing 5,000 people around the world, with an annual turnover in excess of £1.35 billion.
In 2018, it was announced that Clyde Blowers exited their portfolio company, Cone Drive,
The Timken Company for a reported multi-million dollar deal.
Ferguson Marine
McColl was involved in the takeover of Ferguson Marine Engineering Limited after the business went into liquidation in August 2014. His intervention prevented the last remaining shipyard on the Lower Clyde from closure. Later in 2015 his yard was controversially awarded a ferry contract to build two new ferries for
Caledonian MacBrayne. Issues such as disputes over the design led to the ferries being over budget and incomplete when the yard was nationalised in 2019. The
Ferry Fiasco is an ongoing political scandal in Scotland, exposing management failures across all parties involved.
Recognition
McColl was appointed
Officer of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...
(OBE) in the
2001 Birthday Honours for services to the engineering industry. McColl won an "Alumnus of the Year" award from Strathclyde University in 1998, was awarded an honorary doctorate by
Napier University in 2003, and an honorary doctorate by
Glasgow University in 2007. McColl won the Entrepreneurial Exchange 'Entrepreneur of the Year Award' for 1999/2000, and the
Ernst & Young
EY, previously known as Ernst & Young, is a multinational corporation, multinational professional services partnership, network based in London, United Kingdom. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and PwC, it is one of the Big Four accounting firms, Big F ...
"Master Entrepreneur of the Year Award" for 2001. In July 2005, McColl was awarded The Prince Philip Medal 2005 'Certificate of Achievement' for an outstanding contribution to the engineering industry. In May 2006, McColl was presented with a Scottish International Business Achievement award from
The Princess Royal.
Personal life
McColl and his wife Shona are now resident in
Monaco
Monaco, officially the Principality of Monaco, is a Sovereign state, sovereign city-state and European microstates, microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Regions of Italy, Italian region of Liguria, in Western Europe, ...
.
They also have a home outside Glasgow, and McColl is a keen car enthusiast for both modern and classic cars.
McColl was a supporter of the
Scottish Government
The Scottish Government (, ) is the executive arm of the devolved government of Scotland. It was formed in 1999 as the Scottish Executive following the 1997 referendum on Scottish devolution, and is headquartered at St Andrew's House in ...
's policy of independence for Scotland, but in early 2015 changed his view, stating that "the decision's been made" following the 2014 referendum; however, he supports the idea of further tax devolution. He was a member of the Scottish Government's
Scottish Council of Economic Advisers, and spends much of his spare time working on a Glasgow-based welfare-to-work programme.
The 2017 edition of the ''
Sunday Times Rich List'' estimated his fortune at £1.07 billion.
2010 rumoured Rangers takeover bid
On 28 March 2010, it was reported in the ''
Sunday Herald'' that, after discussions with the Rangers Supporters Trust about a takeover designed to make the football club a supporter-owned entity, McColl was believed to be backing the Trust's bid for
Rangers. McColl later told
BBC Scotland
BBC Scotland is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Scotland. Its headquarters are in Glasgow, employing approximately 1,250 staff as of 2017, to produce 15,000 hours of television and radio programming per year. BBC Scotla ...
that he had no interest in any personal financial involvement, but was providing finance advice to the Rangers Supporters' Trust. McColl was part of a consortium, led by former Rangers manager
Walter Smith, that attempted to buy Rangers from liquidators
BDO for £6million.
References
External links
Bio at Clyde Blowers
{{DEFAULTSORT:McColl, Jim
Living people
1951 births
Businesspeople from Glasgow
Engineers from Glasgow
People educated at Rutherglen Academy
Alumni of Strathclyde Business School
Scottish billionaires
Scottish chief executives
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
Scottish expatriates in Monaco
British expatriates in Monaco
21st-century Scottish businesspeople
20th-century Scottish businesspeople