Jim Ratcliffe
Jim Ratcliffe
James Arthur "Jim" Ratcliffeis a British chemical engineer turned financier and industrialist. Ratcliffe is the chairman and chief executive officer of the Ineos chemicals group, which he founded in 1998 and still owns two-thirds of, and which has been estimated to have a turnover of $44bn. He does not have a high public profile, and has been described by the Sunday Times as "publicity shy". According to the 2010 Sunday Times Rich List, he is one of the richest people...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth18 October 1952
What we want to see is a long term future for Grangemouth.
Unions do have a proper role in negotiating for employees and advising employees, but they have to engage with the employer.
Unions can play a valuable role in large organisations where it is difficult to talk to a thousand people. They can negotiate annual pay awards with management, represent grievance cases, and explain and advise on complicated changes in employment or pension law.
While unions did not play a part in my family life when I was being brought up, my early years were most certainly spent in a working-class community.
Towards the end of 2005, Ineos acquired Innovene, the petrochemicals arm of BP, for $9 billion. It quadrupled the size of Ineos overnight and brought with it some of the world's largest industrial sites.
We believe Ineos is a refreshing place to work. We believe strongly in employee share ownership.
It is not necessary, nor appropriate, to sow dissent and misrepresent employees or constantly to threaten industrial action.
I think the U.K. would be perfectly successful as a standalone country, part of the European marketplace like Norway and Switzerland but without the expensive E.U. bureaucracy.
Shale is one answer to the U.K.'s energy problem, and it has obviously worked extraordinarily well in America.
Brussels has become inefficient and very bureaucratic, which makes it slow to do things. The concept of the United States of Europe will never work.
Growing Ineos has been a lot of fun.
If it's hemorrhaging cash, you've got to do something about it. You can't live with your head in the sand.