SCOTLAND’S second richest man, Irvine Laidlaw, is planning to sell off his business and hand over around £20m a year to a new trust for good causes, it emerged last night
Laidlaw, best known as a major donor to the Conservatives, plans to sink the proceeds from the sale of his business services company, the International Institute for Research, and invest the proceeds in a new foundation, investing £10-20m a year in s
pecial education projects.
The move will make the 61-year-old tycoon one of Britain’s most generous benefactors.
The move coincides with his plans to sell off his company, and return to Britain from Monaco, where he current lives as a tax exile.
The scale of Laidlaw’s project rivals a similar bid, announced by fellow Scottish entrepreneur Tom Hunter earlier this year, who is to hand over a fifth of his £500m fortune to charity.
Hunter is the only Scot with a fortune greater than Laidlaw’s estimated £450m sum.
Laidlaw is expected to direct the cash from the new foundation towards helping long-term unemployed back to work. He also wants to expand city academies - privately financed state schools - to help boost standards.
"I think we could start with £10m to £20m a year but I haven’t sold the company and have no idea what it will sell for," he said. "I hope that once it is sold, we will be able to make a substantial amount of money available.
"It’s early days and I’m learning a lot about charities, the dedication of their staff and how they operate, but what I have already learnt is that there is an awful lot to be done."
Laidlaw announced his intention to set up a foundation and sell off his company last year, together with plans to help vulnerable teenagers leaving care.
He put £1m into the Laidlaw Youth Project, which will give grants to charities that help disadvantaged young people avoid the common pitfalls of poverty and homelessness.
A mill owner’s son from Banffshire, his vast wealth was earned through his conference-organising firm, the Institute for International Research, launched in 1982, and now a world leader.
Its Bermuda parent now controls 47 companies.
His donations to the Scottish Tories are believed to have kept the party afloat in recent years, following its 1997 electoral wipe-out.
He is believed to have donated up to £2m to the party - and has said his generosity to the Tories was largely fuelled by his determination that the Scottish National Party should never take power.
As a ‘one nation’ Tory, Irvine has often found himself to the left of the party’s London leadership and has previously threatened only to donate to the Scottish Conservatives.
He has homes in London and Florida, but has lived mostly in Monaco, where he owns a racing yacht known as Highland Fling, and a 185ft cruising yacht, called Lady Christine, named after his second wife.
He has been nominated for a seat at the Lords by the Conservatives and is expected to take the title Lord Laidlaw of Rothiemay, the area in North-east Scotland where his great-great grandfather founded the family’s first woollen mill.
Laidlaw’s backing for the Conservatives dates back to his father Ray Laidlaw, who was a Tory councillor.
He is known as a courteous man, but with a ruthless streak. "A lot of businesses fail because a person who was doing an excellent job is no longer right for the job when the business grows," he once said. "You’ve got to get rid of them. Call it ruthless, but you’re not going to grow if you don’t."
His announcement comes just two months after Hunter’s announcement that he would give away £100m to his own charitable foundation.
The full article contains 665 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
