THE third winner of the Variety Club's Scottish business award was too
busy to collect his trophy in person from Scottish Secretary Ian Lang in
Glasgow yesterday.
But Bill Thornton, the 50-year-old managing director of whisky
distillers Burn Stewart, had the best of excuses.
He was in London, closeted with advisers, discussing the Stock
Exchange flotation of the Barrhead-based group, announced earlier this
week.
New listings of Scottish companies are so rare that no one minded Mr
Thornton's absence from the award lunch.
Substituting for his boss, production director Billy Walker, a member
of the Thornton buy-in team which took control of Burn Stewart in 1988
accepted the George Rex Stewart Trophy from Mr Lang. Since the buy-in,
Burn Stewart has pushed pre-tax profits from #1.5m to #8.2m, bought the
Deanston distillery from Invergordon and taken full control of the Black
Prince whisky brand.
''We expect both export and UK sales to continue to grow,'' Mr Walker
told guests. Previous winners of the award were Tom Farmer of Kwik-Fit
and Alan Wiseman of Wiseman Dairies.
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