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Index to British press articles on the Fayeds' purchase of Harrods

The Observer's former deputy Business editor, Jim Levi, now working for The Guardian, reports on Lonrho's publication and wide distribution of a booklet about Mohamed Al Fayed.  Entitled 'A Hero from Zero', it contains highlights of the evidence that the Lonrho board gave to the Department of Trade & Industry Inspectors during their recently completed investigation into the affair.

The Guardian
Wednesday, 31 August 1988

Lonrho chief executive Tiny Rowland's propaganda war against the Al-Fayeds, owners of the House of Fraser, the Harrods stores group, reached a new level of feverishness last night as the combative tycoon issued his own lengthy version of the events surrounding the Al-Fayeds' £615 million purchase of House of Fraser in March 1985.
    The takeover, in which Egyptian-born Mohamed Al-Fayed and his brothers Ali and Salah pipped Rowland at the post to win control of the stores group, has already been the subject of a year-long enquiry by DTI inspectors.
    The inspectors were appointed just before the last general election after a two-year campaign by Lonrho to have the deal investigated.  Their report has been with Trade Secretary Lord Young since July and is expected to be published next month.
    Rowland has pre-empted publication of the official report by publishing his own 185-page document.  He has ordered the Lonrho printing company Greenaway Harrison to run off some 20,000 copies and promises it will have wide circulation among banks and financial institutions in Britain as well as the banking communities of Switzerland, the US, France, Germany, the Middle East and the Far East. 
    "All members of Parliament and the heads of the top one thousand companies in Britain will all receive copies", Rowland says. 
    The Guardian has already received more than half a dozen hand-delivered copies of the glossily-produced document.  Its title -- A Hero from Zero: the Story of Kleinwort Benson and Mohamed Fayed -- is derived from an alleged tape recording of a conversation between Fayed and two Indian gurus said to have links with the Sultan of Brunei. 
    The latest Lonrho missive repeats in detail many allegations against Fayed, against casting doubt on his ability to finance such a large takeover from his own resources.  Lonrho claims that the Fayeds' true worth at the time of the bid was between £50 and £60 million. 
    It also claims that the 110-strong stores chain has suffered financially under the Fayeds.  Borrowings have been stretched to the limit, Lonrho alleges, and the only way out is to sell stores. 
    Rowland also claims that the Fayeds have avoided paying UK tax while being resident here for more than 20 years. 
    The sequence of events which gave the Fayeds control of the stores group is still in dispute.  A Hero from Zero claims Lonrho did not receive clearance from the Department of Trade to bid again for House of Fraser until March 14 1985, after the Fayeds had already obtained more than 50 per cent of the shares (including 29.9 per cent acquired from Lonrho the previous November).
    But Mr Royston Webb, legal adviser to the Fayeds, last night said: "They received clearance to bid three days before we had obtained control.  I have not seen this document yet but if they are still maintaining that particular fiction, I shall be taking this new document with a very large pinch of the proverbial salt."  Mohamed Fayed, who has constantly denied the Lonrho allegations, was unavailable for comment.

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