‘These clouds will have a silver lining’

22 November 2008

Judi Bevan meets Sir John Parker, who chairs National Grid and the Court of the Bank of England — and takes an optimistic view of the deepening recession

Along the way he has earned a reputation for delivering value to shareholders. He turned Babcock round, negotiated the sale of the buildings materials group RMC to Cemex of Mexico and at P&O he did the deal with DP World (Dubai). ‘He is highly numerate,’ says Lord Sterling, who handed over to him at P&O. ‘And he can unquestionably be very exacting and pragmatic when need be. He really understands what managing people is all about.’

The current recession is no surprise to Parker. ‘Shipping is a very good barometer of world trade and economic activity,’ he says, pointing to the halving of container rates in the past two years. Yet despite the panics of the past two months he still feels that the early and mid-1970s were worse. ‘That was a terrific adjustment seen through the eyes of industry. A huge number of companies collapsed, unemployment rose and there were big structural changes.’ He believes the economy had become too reliant on the financial sector and hopes this crisis will lead to more balance.

‘There is a tremendous shortage of engineers in Europe and the United States because so many of the brightest brains go straight to the City,’ he says. ‘Yet we at National Grid and companies such as Rolls-Royce desperately need these people. They are crucial when you are building a lot of infrastructure. These are the guys who can solve climate change; they can come up with the engineering solutions to clean up coal, to design and build nuclear power stations and wind farms.’

Amid the surrounding gloom, Parker remains an optimist: ‘Some silver linings will come out of this cloud.’