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
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.
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.
It would be nice if areas could be revitalised - like places in the U.S. such as Pittsburgh, for example, which have been transformed through shale. There you have shiny cars in a shiny city because of the development of shale in an old industrial heartland.
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.
There's no substitute for seeing firsthand a well being drilled.
What we want to see is a long term future for Grangemouth.
Growing Ineos has been a lot of fun.
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.
Shale is one answer to the U.K.'s energy problem, and it has obviously worked extraordinarily well in America.
We believe Ineos is a refreshing place to work. We believe strongly in employee share ownership.
It's always been hard work for us to manufacture in the U.K. It's not a particularly profitable place for us.
The Brits are perfectly capable of managing the Brits and don't need Brussels telling them how to manage things.
Do your analysis of energy costs. Either it comes from windmills and solar or things like nuclear and shale gas. You have to think about how you provide competitive energy for U.K. Ltd.