It was the early 1970s. Tax rates were sky high and Joe Cyril Bamford was under pressure to sell his beloved JCB
The engineer-cum-entrepreneur had called in Rothschild to advise on a possible flotation of the iconic yellow digger maker. The family company finally looked set to give up its independence.
But then, in a moment of disarming honesty that would cost the investment bank its lucrative fees, Evelyn de Rothschild advised the Bamfords not to sell.
"I asked Evelyn what we should do and he said if I were you, I'd never sell it," recalls the late Joe Bamford's son, Sir Anthony. "I thought coming from a merchant banker, that was really the best advice. Why would we want to float the business?"
Some 30 years' later, Sir Anthony has a lot to thank Rothschild for. JCB – named after its founder – is one of Britain's few remaining manufacturing success stories. Employing 7,000 people with bases in six countries around the world, JCB is the world's eighth biggest construction equipment maker.
Against that backdrop, Sir Anthony should be in the best of spirits, but the 64 year-old is far from carefree as he gives a rare interview at JCB's headquarters in Rocester, Staffordshire.
A dyed-in-the-wool engineer who has headed the family company since 1975, Sir Anthony plays down talk of a recovery for the £130bn sector.
"One reads in the press of there being a renaissance in manufacturing in Britain, and I don't believe it," he says, his speech an upper-class drawl. "I really despair because we were a manufacturing nation. Why should we be one of the people that stand out in Britain? There should be lots like us."
Such heartfelt candidness is typical of JCB's chairman, who has previously spoken out on anything from Britain joining the euro to the decision of Corus, the steel maker, to sell out to Tata of India. The lack of self-sufficiency in British farming has been another bugbear for Sir Anthony, who is married to Lady Bamford, the driving force behind Daylesford Organics.
His comments haven't always met with approval, but in Rocester he is very much king. Like Bournville for Cadbury, Rocester is JCB's kingdom. The village's social and sports club is sponsored by the manufacturer, many of its inhabitants are JCB staff, and the helicopter that flies over the area is Sir Anthony's transport from homes in Stow-on-the Wold and Chelsea.
In many respects Sir Anthony is an anachronism in modern Britain. A landowning industrialist with an estimated £1bn fortune who mixes freely with royalty and politicians alike, he talks nostalgically of the days when Britain's towns and villages were dotted with cottage industries and when buying British was commonplace.
"In my father's day we were buying in Manchester, in Sheffield, in Birmingham. As recently as 2000 we would have been buying 75pc of our purchases from the UK, but many of the businesses we were buying from just don't exist anymore," he says. "We're trying to spend more in Britain but we're having a real problem. You can't find people to make crankshafts, pistons, conrods, valves – these are basic parts of engineering."
JCB has hosted two open days in recent months for would-be suppliers to tour its factories and pitch for supply contracts. Sixty have attended but just three have expressed an interest in supplying the company. "It is depressing," Sir Anthony admits.
His sadness is more than mere nostalgia. Recent manufacturing data shows an upturn in the industry on the back of a weak pound and the inventory cycle, but JCB does not hold excess stock and now buys less than 50pc of its supplies from inside the UK. As such it gives a valuable indication of the sector's true health.
"The idea that a weak pound allows you to increase your export sales doesn't hold good with us because we're importing at a high euro rate," Sir Anthony says. "We also don't build for inventory. With our product, you either need it or you don't. We have to live with that and unfortunately so do our suppliers. We fluctuate."
That fluctation has been especially marked in the wake of the global recession, as private and public sector construction projects have been slashed and capital expenditure reined back.
JCB enjoyed a record year in 2007, making 72,000 machines with revenues of £2.25bn. In 2008, sales fell to £2bn as just 57,000 machines were manufactured. Last year, just 36,000 machines were made. Sales figures have yet to be released although Sir Anthony claims the group did remain profitable.
The sharp fall in demand led JCB to cut back staff numbers sharply, down more than a fifth from 9,000. Working hours were scaled back and while staff are now back full time, JCB's 11 plants are running markedly below capacity.
"I've been in business since 1964 and while we've had recessions, never before has the whole of Europe been in recession."
The recession is not the only culprit, however. Sir Anthony suggests the UK Government's intransigence on employment has also played its part.
"In Germany, our people have carried on working and do two days for us, while the state pays for the other three. There are similar arrangements throughout the EU," he says. "We've talked to Mandelson and to others who might be elected but it's something they just don't want to tackle. Mandelson's attitude is that it would be fiddled."
The JCB boss dismissed that argument, pointing to the success of schemes at companies including Daimler in Germany.
Sir Anthony is doing more than just slinging mud when it comes to manufacturing's woes. JCB has put £2m into an engineering academy for 14 to 19 year olds in Rocester that opens in September. Other partners include Rolls-Royce, Bombardier and Toyota.
He also has a message for those in Westminster, including Conservative leader David Cameron, to whose party he donated £1m in the run up to the last general election.
"Politicians should acknowledge that you cannot exist as a nation like ours just on the services sector and invisible exports. You can't exist just from people flipping hamburgers; you have to manufacture," he says.
Sir Anthony gives guarded support to recent backing for the sector from Lord Mandelson. "That has been very useful, but this is not something you do in a week or a year. It needs long term commitment and political parties of every colour have failed to give that," he says. "I don't think there's been a sustained policy for manufacturing since the 1960s."
There is much for JCB to focus on in the meantime. The company restructured its executive team at the beginning of this year, appointing 20-year JCB veteran Alan Blake as chief executive to replace Matthew Taylor who stepped down in November.
The departure came as a shock – JCB has had just two chairmen and five chief executives in its 64-year history.
Blake has much to do. Emerging markets are in growth mode, with JCB's businesses in Brazil, China and India performing strongly, while the new chief executive will also be focusing on developing JCB's diesel engine business – a unit that gained credibility following the setting of a land speed record by the JCB Dieselmax in Utah in 2006.
With that kind of ambition, Sir Anthony will be hoping JCB can help to fire a renaissance in Britain's own manufacturing record.
CV
Sir Anthony Bamford, Chairman, JCB
Born 1945, on the day that his father Joe Bamford launched JCB
Knighted 1990
Family Married with three children
Lives Stow-on-the-Wold; Chelsea
Estimated wealth £1bn
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... ccess.html
- totally ridiculous. 
