ABSTRACT
Just days before the concession agreement was signed, the Channel Tunnel Group announced that Sir Nicholas Henderson’s replacement as chairman would be Lord Pennock. It was a choice designed to please the banks and the City of London. He was a director of the merchant bank Morgan Grenfell and of the Standard Chartered Bank, and was also president of the European Employers’ organisation UNICE. Previously he had been deputy chairman of ICI, president of the Confederation of British Industry and, from 1980 to 1985, chairman of BICC, whose construction subsidiary Balfour Beatty was one of the British founder members of the Channel Tunnel Group. Lord Pennock was a heavyweight experienced industrialist, but even he must have wondered what on earth he had let himself in for. Within weeks of taking up the post, he was beset by problems.
