Death of Alex Spain, ex-chairman of DCC

THE DEATH has occurred of Alex Spain, former chairman of DCC and National Irish Bank.

Mr Spain, who has passed away at the age of 79, is survived by his wife Maureen, six children and his extended family.

A past pupil of Blackrock College in Dublin, Mr Spain graduated from UCD with a first-class honours degree in commerce in 1954. He began his career as an accountant, and was managing partner at Stokes Kennedy Crowley (now KPMG) from 1977 to 1984.

In the mid-1980s, he set up a management consultancy, Zeus Management, and was appointed by then minister for communications Jim Mitchell to take control of troubled shipping group BI. After a radical rationalisation plan, with hundreds of redundancies, the heavily indebted BI was sold to Irish Continental Group in 1992.

Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, Mr Spain held a number of high-profile directorships. He was chairman of Xtra-Vision during a tumultuous period ahead of its sale to Cambridge Investments in 1990. He was also chairman of Food Industries during a period when its main shareholder, Larry Goodman, was facing financial difficulties leading to the sale of assets to Greencore in the early 1990s.

Mr Spain was best-known in contemporary Irish business circles as the chairman of DCC, a position he held for 30 years. He was also chairman of National Irish Bank between 1986 to 1998. Both positions were not without challenges.

Mr Spain was chairman of DCC when Fyffes took its insider-trading case against DCC, though he was not called to give evidence.

His period as chairman of NIBcoincided with the overcharging controversy, though the board was cleared of responsibility.

As well as holding senior business positions, Mr Spain served as president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in 1975/1976 and as chairman of the Financial Services Industry Association in Ireland. He was involved in Milltown Golf Club, UCD Rugby Club and Blackrock College Union.