Content area
Full Text
Millfield's chief executive is finally celebrating the completion of the firm's merger with Inter-Alliance to set up the UK's biggest IFA and hits back at critics of the deal, claiming the attacks are from people with little idea of how a big plc operates
The deal has finally been done after a failed attempt and several other potential suitors and now Millfield chief executive Paul Tebbutt is looking ahead after the merger with Keith Carby's Inter- Alliance to form the biggest IFA firm in the UK.
Armed with pound 15m in loans from Axa Sun Life, Friends Provident, Prudential, Scottish Widows and Skandia Life, Tebbutt finalised the deal last week and immediately ran into fire from the press and IFA rivals for the way the deal was set up. But Tebbutt says he is not one to lose too much sleep over such criticism, believing he has seen enough in his life to understand the hows and whys of what he describes as "uninformed comment".
Before coming to financial services in 1972, Tebbutt had a number of diverse jobs around London, including working in the accounts department for a gentlemen's club, doing public relations for a film distributor and working as a cashier for a casino. "At one time, I was the youngest casino cashier in London. It was an amazing introduction to a very different life."
Tebbutt grew up in Holloway in North London in the 1950s and 1960s. His father worked in a foundry and he says in those early years money was tight.
Casino life was a real culture shock for the young Tebbutt, working from 6pm to 7am, and he says he learnt some surprising lessons on how the other half lived. "I...