"Sir Graham Day, who has died aged 92, was a hard-nosed, inspirational Canadian lawyer who slowed the decline of Britain’s shipbuilding industry and relaunched British Leyland as the Rover Group; he also chaired British Aerospace and Cadbury Schweppes.
As BL Chairman in 1986, he sold off sectors of the company to concentrate on Austin Rover’s volume car operation. He stayed when the government sold Rover to BAe, leaving in 1993 not long before its further sale to BMW briefly seemed to guarantee Rover’s future. With no grounding in manufacturing, Day argued: “I may be a lawyer but I reckon my numbers are pretty good.” Arriving at BL, he told employees: “Work hard, keep your nose clean and hope like hell you have a job tomorrow.” He insisted he was not a hatchet man, and won over journalists by telling them: “I’m generally available on the bad news days as well as the good.”
In June 1986, weeks after arriving, Day relaunched BL as the Rover Group. His priorities were to sell off fringe businesses, put more “commercial punch” into Austin Rover and stem losses at Leyland Trucks, which he merged with DAF, bringing plant closures and 2,600 redundancies.
In 1987 – with losses peaking at £892 million (£1,800 for each car sold) – Day signed an agreement strengthening Rover’s ties with Honda, with a new medium-sized car range. He ended the Austin marque, and put £35 million towards a better-trained workforce.
In 1988 the Government sold its 99.8 per cent shareholding in Rover to BAe, who received a “dowry” of £650 million towards new model development. The deal – cleared with Honda and Brussels – was a coup for Day, who had insisted on a private sale as an auction would damage the business.
Day told the Trade and Industry Select Committee he did not expect the takeover to lead directly to redundancies. Weeks later, Rover announced the closure of its Llanelli and Cowley (South) plants, with a loss of 3,400 jobs. The MPs recalled Day, who apologised but said the closures had been “long on the cards”.
He turned down the chance to succeed Admiral Sir Raymond Lygo as BAe’s chief executive, and in 1988 handed over his chief executive’s duties at Rover to the Leyland veteran George Simpson, who would negotiate the company’s sale to BMW before overseeing the collapse of GEC. In 1988-89 Rover made a £65 million profit.
In 1993 Day gave up all his chairmanships and returned to Canada. He departed with a scathing attack on education in Britain, saying there was a growing division between an elite workforce and an unemployable, semi-literate mass which spent its days watching videos.
Sir Graham Day, born May 3 1933, died July 31 2025:-
https://archive.ph/fwyiJ
Edited by mab01uk, 20 August 2025 - 10:50 PM.
