大象传媒

The Laidlaw documents

• Robert Peston
• 20 Apr 07, 06:00 PM

Following a Freedom of Information request to the , the 大象传媒 has received relating to the dispute between the Commission and Lord Laidlaw over his failure to become tax resident in the UK.

The documents include the minutes of the original meeting on April 2 2004 between Lord Stevenson, the Chairman of the Commission, and Lord Laidlaw, who was then plain Irvine Laidlaw.

They record Lord Laidlaw as saying that he had 鈥渃onsulted with his tax advisers and would inform the Revenue of his intention to become resident in the UK for tax purposes鈥� as of April 6 2004.

We鈥檝e also been sent Lord Laidlaw鈥檚 letter to Lord Stevenson of March 21 2007, which says:

鈥淕iven the vote in the House of Commons on replacing the Lords with a fully elected chamber, there is considerable uncertainty on whether both you and I will have a job in the future. I think more clarity is need on the Government鈥檚 plans before making changes in my tax position.鈥�

That rather implies that Lord Laidlaw isn鈥檛 planning to stop being a tax exile any time soon.

Finally we have a copy of Lord Stevenson鈥檚 reply to Lord Laidlaw of April 18. It says:

鈥淚 should make it plain that the various reasons in your letter, some personal, some political, for not moving your tax residency are, in our view, irrelevant to the matter in hand which is simply that we expect you to honour the commitment you made鈥�.

Lord Stevenson goes on to say that he expects Lord Laidlaw to backdate his tax residency to April 6 2004, the date he originally agreed to become a tax resident.

If Lord Laidlaw complies, this could be very expensive for him. He is worth an estimated 拢700m and might have to pay tens of millions of pounds of tax to Her Majesty鈥檚 Revenue and Customs, if paying all the tax that would be due from the past three years.

So the documents show why Lord Laidlaw is not showing any great enthusiasm for following the instructions of his party leader, David Cameron, to honour the undertakings he gave to the Lords Appointments Commission.

For the full set of papers,

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KKR鈥檚 death wish?

• Robert Peston
• 20 Apr 07, 02:30 PM

There are worrying signs of a serious marble deficiency at the world鈥檚 leading private equity firm, . Here鈥檚 why.

1) The two most substantial and resonant criticisms of private equity鈥檚 ownership of companies is that private-equity firms in general are too secretive and that they burden the businesses they buy with excessive debts.

2) So you would assume that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the irrepressible granddaddy of the modern private equity industry, would not wish to lay itself open to either of those charges when buying for around 拢10.6bn. After all, it鈥檚 a much loved British business, and deals with the NHS and almost all of us when we have a cough, a sniffle or something more serious. Oh, and it also employs 100,000 people who are all wondering if their jobs will be less secure as and when the takeover is completed.

3) I therefore expected that it would be easy to learn quite how much debt KKR is loading on to the business. Silly me. Apparently this is commercially sensitive information, which if released could be exploited by KKR鈥檚 rival in the contest to buy Alliance Boots. As someone who has been hanging around the City for more than 20 years, I regard that excuse as what my 10-year-old would call lamer than lame.

4) But, perhaps more relevantly, I took it for granted that KKR and its business partner, Stefano Pessina 鈥� the Monaco-based billionaire deputy chairman of Alliance Boots 鈥� would leap at the chance to be interviewed about their plans. They would obviously want to allay the legitimate fears of Alliance Boots鈥檚 many employees and customers and explain that their ambitions are actually to grow the company, rather than slash and burn it for a quick buck. But again I made a miscalculation. Neither Mr Pessina nor any KKR partner wishes to be interviewed for television or radio. So what was that about private equity鈥檚 new commitment to communicate better and become more transparent in their activities?

5) To be clear, I have nothing but respect for KKR鈥檚 and Pessina鈥檚 respective track records as uber capitalists. But their inability to recognise that now, more than ever, they need to build the trust of the wider public, in order to pursue their ambitions over the longer term, makes me wonder whether they鈥檝e been out in this unseasonal sunshine too long.

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