Cyril Stein

Cyril Stein, who died on February 15 aged 82, was the long-serving chairman of Ladbrokes, which he built from a modest bookmaking enterprise into a multibillion-pound leisure conglomerate. 

Stein in his London office Photo: MICHAEL WEBB

 

Stein’s career began in an era when betting was confined to bookies’ enclosures on racecourses, and to credit accounts for well-to-do punters. After the industry was liberated by the legalisation of off-course betting shops in the early 1960s, he recycled the abundant cash flow from his rapidly growing high-street chain into hotels, real estate, bingo halls, football pools, retailing and casinos. It was a strategy which handsomely rewarded Ladbrokes’ investors over the 27 years of Stein’s chairmanship, from 1966 to 1993.

Ladbrokes’ casino activity was for some years the source of almost half its profits — but was almost the cause of Stein’s downfall in the late 1970s, when Gaming Board inspectors investigated allegations that the group’s West End casinos had been breaking the rules by enticing high-rollers from other clubs. Magistrates ruled that Ladbrokes’ managers were not “fit and proper”, an appeal judge called Ladbrokes’ behaviour “disgraceful”; some institutional shareholders withdrew support, and the company’s shares dived.

Always aloof in his dealings with the City, Stein then kept an even lower profile — but he was nothing if not tenacious, and as one colleague put it, his greatest strength was “his ability to make people leave a room with a different view from the one they held when they came in”.

He regained his stock market reputation by a coup in 1987 when he picked up 93 Hilton hotels outside the United States for a cash offer of £645 million. Within four years their value had almost quadrupled, and Stein abandoned his customary reticence to remark: “It’s not just the best deal I’ve made, it’s the best deal anyone has ever made.”

He went on to add the Scottish-based Stakis group of hotels and casinos for £1.2 billion. But other ventures in property and retailing, notably the Texas Homecare DIY chain and Laskys electrical stores, proved burdensome in the recession of the early 1990s, and the group’s debts ballooned. Stein’s reluctance to reveal more than a minimum of financial detail to the outside world made matters worse.

He still had his admirers — one rival in the betting business called him “a genius” — but pressure rose for him to step aside. He did so at the end of 1993, rarely to be seen again on the British corporate stage.
Cyril Stein was born in the East End of London on February 20 1928 into a family of migrants from Russia. His father, known as “Honest Jack”, worked for the London and Provincial Sporting News Agency, which relayed information between off-course bookmakers and racecourses.
Cyril was educated at West Ham Grammar School and ran his own small credit-betting office in the West End until he teamed up in 1956 with his bookmaker uncle Mark, who traded as Max Parker, to buy the venerable firm of Ladbrokes, founded in 1886.
Parker put up £100,000 to buy what was then a “turf accountant” to the gentry (and, allegedly, to members of the royal family betting under pseudonyms) staffed by Dickensian clerks at high ledger desks. One story had it that the purchase price was matched by unpaid debts from aristocratic punters which Cyril proceeded vigorously to collect, so that the company was actually bought for next to nothing.
As Ladbrokes’ managing director, Stein set out to raise its profile and broaden its customer base. As soon as off-track betting shops were legalised by the Macmillan government in 1961, he began to build a chain of what was eventually more than 1,000 high-street outlets. He also introduced fixed-odds betting on football matches, though fierce rivalry with the William Hill chain and an unexpectedly heavy payout almost broke Ladbrokes in December 1963.
Later, Stein also pioneered political betting, and offered a Ladbrokes tent at Test matches – enabling some Australian players, midway through the 1981 Headingley Test, to take advantage of 500-1 odds on the improbable England victory which transpired.
Ladbrokes was listed on the stock exchange in 1967 with a value of £2 million, and by the time of Stein’s departure it had a market capitalisation of more than £2 billion. Seeking a new business challenge in semi-retirement, he invested £10 million of his own fortune in buying and refurbishing the St James’s Club in London, which he sold at a handsome profit in 2005.
Cyril Stein was a successful racehorse owner and enjoyed high stakes on-course betting. “Yes, I do generally end up winning,” he told an interviewer. Legend had it that he was once been consulted by a Ladbrokes manager who had been asked to make a book on the name of the next Archbishop of Canterbury, but did not know where to start. “You want a start, I’ll give you a start,” Stein replied. “The Chief Rabbi’s 1,000 to one.”
As an observant Jew, Stein eschewed travelling to race meetings on the Sabbath, arriving on foot at Aintree (from a convenient Ladbrokes hotel) for the Grand National when it was under his sponsorship. He was never showy, and was essentially a workaholic micro-manager who kept his non-business life very private. His Who’s Who entry ran to only two lines.
Such spare time as he allowed himself was largely taken up with Jewish charities and causes. As a young man he had been involved in Left-wing Zionism, and during the Six-Day War in 1967 he installed a bank of telephones in his London boardroom and worked round the clock raising funds to support the Israeli effort.
He was later a vice-president of the United Joint Israel Appeal and a benefactor of the Jewish National Fund. He supported educational and environmental projects in Israel, and funded an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.
He spent more time in Israel in later years and there was some expectation that he might enter politics there. He never did so, but occasionally expressed pungent views — including telling the then British Chief Rabbi, Lord Jakobovits, that his public remarks on the Palestinian refugee issue represented “foolishness ... beyond comprehension”.
Cyril Stein married, in 1949, Betty Young, the daughter of another bookmaker. She survives him with their two sons and a daughter.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/finance-obituaries/8343803/Cyril-Stein.html