Other ventures
After British Leyland decided to close the MG Cars factory at Abingdon in 1980, Wickins became involved with a group of businessmen aiming to finance Aston Martin's purchase of the brand and factory. Led by Alan Curtis (Chairman of Aston Martin), the group consisted of Wickins, Peter Cadbury, Lord George-Brown and the Norwest construction. The consortia commissioned William Towns to design an updated MG MGB, which was produced at Newport Pagnell in six days, ready for the publicity presentation.[2] However, rejected outright by BL, this project failed to materialise.[3]
After the death of founder Colin Chapman in 1982, Wickins became involved with Lotus Cars in 1983, taking a 29% stake in the then troubled company. After bringing in other investors and negotiating with the Inland Revenue, he oversaw a turnaround in the sports car manufacturer's fortunes, which resulted in him being called "The saviour of Lotus". Wickins oversaw the sale of the business to General Motors in 1986.
In March 1983, Wickins was asked to lead a private-sector consortia to help save the Meriden Workers Co-operative. The co-op owned the Triumph Engineering company, the stuttering residual and by then near-bankrupt component of the once world dominant British motorcycling industry, by then solely producing the Triumph Bonneville T140. Wickins gathered a £500,000 private investment fund together from five investors, including BCA, United Dominions Trust and GEC/Binatone.[4] But civil servants, with advising merchant bankers and commercial accountants, considered that at least £1 million was required to save the company and reconstruct it. Despite briefly considering buying the bankrupt Hesketh Motorcycles, and touting a 900cc prototype water-cooled twin at the 1983 National Exhibition Show to attract outside investment, the Conservative-led UK government refused to back the co-op, resulting in Triumph Motorcycles (Meriden) Ltd becoming bankrupt on 23 August 1983.[5]
By early 1983, Lord Ashcroft's Hawley Goodall Ltd had built up a 20% stake in pharmaceutical packaging manufacturer Cope Allman. Ashcroft offered to increase his stake to 29.9%, just below the 30% level at which a formal bid for the entire company must be launched. Ashcroft and Cope Allman fought bitterly over the purchase share price and current holdings, with Cope Allman reporting Ashcroft and Wickins to the Takeover panel, after discovering that BCA had built up a 13.5% in the company. But the takeover panel found that the Ashcroft and Wickins were operating independently, so Hawley was able to increase its holding to 29.9%. At this point the combined holdings of Hawley/BCA in Cope Allman amounted to 43.5%, giving them the power to introduce sweeping changes without launching a full bid.[1] Cope Allman was eventually sold to an MBO backed by Hawley and financed by Bain Capital, and then sold to Bowater in 1992 in a complex swap of assets with ADT/Hawley.[6]
In 1985 Ashcroft and Wickins bought car sales dealership Henlys Group via a Canadian-registered company. Controlled by Ashcroft's Hawley Goodall, Henlys was merged with funeral hearse makers Coleman Milne to form a Motoring Division. In 1989, Hawley Goodall sold its Motoring Division consisting of Henlys and Coleman Milne to the Plaxton Group, the bus and coach manufacturer based in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.
Wickins became involved with Charles Forte, Baron Forte, joining the board of Forte Group to enable the family to sell-off the catering and restaurant business to concentrate on their hotel business.
In the 1970s, Wickins bought "The Mariners" public house in Frensham, in an ill-fated attempt to turn it into a high-class restaurant. It was one of his many business ventures, not all of which succeeded, he commenting later that his motto was: "If you don't bet on a few losers, you'll never bet on a winner."
