SIR ANTHONY TENNANT;WHEN THE high-profile British businessman Sir Anthony Tennant, who has died aged 80, agreed to become chairman of fine art auctioneer Christie's International in 1993, he could never have imagined that his decision would mean him ending his life as a fugitive from justice, certain to be arrested if he ever set foot in the US.
Tennant embodied the world’s idea of the patrician British gentleman. His father was from a wealthy, aristocratic Scots farming and military family; his mother was a viscountess.
Born in London, he was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, and served in the Scots Guards in Malaya. During his working life he collected a knighthood (1992), a couple of honorary degrees and the Medaille de la Ville de Paris. He was a chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur. His upright, confident manner was reflected in his standing in the business community.
When he left the British army at the age of 23, instead of going into the City, Tennant got a job with the then leading advertising agency in London, Mather Crowther. He was fascinated by marketing, coming up with such slogans as “Schhh – you know who” for Schweppes and “Good Food Costs Less” for Sainsbury’s, and stayed in that field for the next decade and a half.
In 1970, he joined the brewing group Truman’s, piloting the company through the merger with Watney Mann. In 1976, he was poached to become managing director and then chief executive of International Distillers and Vintners (IDV), where he remained until 1987. There he was responsible for the launch of a number of innovative brands, transforming a mediocre spirits business into a global drinks group. However, he lost out in the contest for the top job at IDV’s parent company, Grand Metropolitan. At about the same time, the British department of trade and industry, acting on a tip-off from the US department of justice following a plea-bargain from the insider-trader Ivan Boesky, began to investigate an illegal share support operation at Guinness, the brewing group.
As the degree of the share fraud began to unravel, Guinness’s chairman, Ernest Saunders, was forced to resign, and Tennant was shipped in to clear up the mess, first as chief executive and then, from 1989, as chairman. He had the perfect combination of respectability and business nous for the Guinness job.
Things started to go wrong for him when, in May 1993, he agreed to become chairman of Christie’s International which, along with Sotheby’s Holdings, dominated the world market in international fine art auctions.
In the six years that followed, according to the US department of justice, the two auctioneers conspired to agree commission rates charged to sellers, thus depriving the sellers of the opportunity to negotiate rates. At the top of the conspiracy, it was alleged, were the chairmen of the two companies, Alfred Taubman at Sotheby’s and Tennant at Christie’s.
Tennant insisted he was innocent of any wrongdoing, claiming he was hired by Christie’s to perform an ambassadorial role, hosting events and wooing clients, moving effortlessly through the higher social echelons of London, Paris, New York and Tokyo, winning business for the firm.
Tennant freely admitted that he had met Taubman, who was convicted in 2001, and subsequently sentenced to a year in jail. However, he always insisted that any price-fixing that went on was agreed by the firms’ chief executive officers, without the knowledge of their respective chairmen.
It was Christopher Davidge, chief executive of Christie’s, who “blew the whistle” on the scheme, earning himself immunity from prosecution. Dede Brooks, chief executive of Sotheby’s, admitted guilt and escaped jail.
Tennant never returned to the US. In a letter to friends following his indictment, he said he would not return to “clear his name” because it would have meant staying there for months, “possibly years”, incurring huge legal bills. He asserted that his indictment meant that he could not appear as a witness for Taubman, who was the department of justice’s real target. Whether or not that is the case, there is no doubt that Tennant’s absence weakened Taubman’s defence.
So Taubman alone went to prison while Davidge enjoyed the fruits of a multimillion payoff from Christie’s. Tennant, meanwhile, did not need a US court of law to declare his innocence or guilt. “I prefer”, he wrote, “to rely on the recognition of my friends that I am innocent of these charges.”
Tennant is survived by his wife Rosemary Stockdale, whom he married in 1954, and their sons, Christopher and Patrick.
Anthony John Tennant: born November 5th, 1930; died August 4th, 2011