PROFILE
CHARLES WILSON BOOKER
FINAL LAP OF HONOUR FOR THE
TURNAROUND KING BOOKER CEO CHARLES WILSON IS TO RETIRE EARLY NEXT YEAR, CALLING TIME ON A TRULY REMARKABLE CAREER. HIS 15 YEAR SPELL AT THE WHOLESALER SAW IT TRANSFORMED FROM A BUSINESS OF THE VERGE OF COLLAPSE INTO A BEHEMOTH THAT TESCO VALUED AT £4BN.
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BY ANTONY BEGLEY
harles Wilson is, arguably, the most successful businessman ever to operate in the UK convenience and wholesaling channel. He’s one of the most successful businessmen in the UK, full stop – but among his peers in this particular industry he has built a reputation that is very probably unique. Admired, respected and liked in equal measure, his quiet, considered manner belies a man with the sharpest brain. Or, as an article in The Times put it: “The main with three brains”. The quote was attributed to an unnamed former colleague, but it got the point across. What Wilson achieved at Booker is often lost in the mists of time, but when he first joined the business some 15 years ago, it was literally on the verge of going to the wall. It was saddled
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with crippling debt – hundreds of millions – so much so that it was it was unable to service the debt and had crashed ignominiously through the borrowing levels set by its bank. At one point in the mid-90s, it lost 90% of its stock market value. It had been a tumultuous time for the once great company. In 2000, it was sold to Iceland Supermarkets, via Big Food Group, which was then in turn sold itself four years later to Icelandic group Baugur which split Booker and Iceland back into different companies. Baugur ultimately became one of the more high profile disasters of that catastrophic period, with the founder of the company found guilty of serious accounting irregularities. By 2007, Booker had reversed into the AIMlisted grocery wholesaler Blueheath to form
