profile: In between, he became the highest profile businessman in Britain, according to The Guardian. He was an inspiration for managers who had come to feel powerless, but a bogeyman for leftwing trade unionists who accused him of reinventing macho management and called him the poison dwarf a reference to his diminutive stature. But Edwardes, who has died aged 88, was actually the choice of an exasperated Labour government to take over, in 1977, as chairman of the failing British Leyland motor company and he departed when Margaret Thatcher lost confidence in him in 1982. By the end of his five years at BL, he had almost halved the workforce and closed 19 out of 55 plants, but the company still produced 80% as many cars as before, and new models were also being launched. It came at a cost 1.5bn of losses charged, to Thatcher's chagrin, to the taxpayer. Jaguar was revitalised, though Triumph and MG shut down.
(news.financializer.com). As
reported in the news.
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