[19] In June 1965, Goldsmith with help from Roland Franklin and Keyser Ullman, started to implement a plan by first selling the Carlisle factory of Carr & Co for £600,000 and leasing it back for £63,000 a year.
[20] The new company impressed the Sunday Times, Cavenham Foods, the new bakery and confectionery group which will result from the merger of the James Goldsmith controlled food companies, looks like becoming one of the most interesting shares on the stock exchange[21] Goldsmith warned shareholders after the merger that The reorganisation that will follow will be inevitably will be a lengthy and expensive operation... the material benefits are unlikely to be realised in the immediate future[22] Shortly after completing the merger of the Cavenham Foods subsidiaries, Goldsmith and his distant cousin Alexis de Gunzeberg purchased a 20% shareholding, through their new company Cavenham Investments, in a tobacco firm called Singleton & Cole from Jim Slater.
All the trading divisions did appreciably better than forecast in the last annual report[43] The company started expanding by purchasing in October 1969, Anabbs Ltd, a chain of newsagents in Greater London from Davies Ltd which tripled the retail business turnover.
[52] However Goldsmith was planning for bigger purchases, and in February 1970 he asked the London Stock Exchange to suspend the shares in Cavenham Foods, while the company completed a reorganisation and expansion.
Bovril, which also produced products as varied as Ambrosia Creamed Rice, Marmite and Jaffajuice, had been seen as a takeover target since the mid-1960s, but had put most suitors off due to the huge losses made at its South American assets.
[62] Business consultant John Tigrett arranged a meeting with Lord Luke using his ties to Conwood Corporation to ascertain if a bid was worth making.
In the meeting, Tigrett had said he represented investors who wanted to inject cash into Bovril (with no mention of Cavenham) and asked questions about the company's balance sheet and its South American holdings, which Lord Luke could not answer himself.
John Tigrett was again behind the deal, with American retailer Southland Corporation, operators of 7-Eleven stores, paying £3.3 million with an additional 20% increase if sales exceed profits of £375,000.
It was reported after that some of the stock sellers didn't actually own the Bovril shares they were selling at the time, a process that continued until rules were tightened after Guinness share-trading fraud.
In his sights was Allied Suppliers, a group that included Lipton, a tea and grocery business, and grocers Home and Colonial Stores, Maypole and Presto supermarkets amongst others.
However, both Unilever and Cavenham were listed companies so could not agree a deal in advance, without it being acceptable to the London Stock Exchange or the government's Takeover panel.
[109][110][111] As part of the Southland's deal, they had the option to buy half of the newly acquired Allied Suppliers but couldn't afford the £25 million asking price.
[139][140] Later in the year, Cavenham Holdings Inc. started the purchase of a further 30% shareholding in Grand Union, where Jim Wood had closed 47 stores and opened 19 new ones and seen turnover grow to £1.5 billion.
[152] In December the company's six monthly figures were released and they were even better achieving pre-tax profits of £22.7 million, and confirming that they had bought the remaining shareholdings in subsidiaries AB Felix, and acquired the 49.8% of Cavenham-Southland from the Southland Corporation and renamed it Moores-Wright's.
[153][154][155] On the same day as the Cavenham-Southland deal, Cavenham sold 18.75% of their shares in the newsagent joint venture, Southland-Cavenham making Southland the majority shareholder and the name was changed to Southland-McColl.
[158][149] A few weeks later, Goldsmith announced that Generale Occidentale wanted to buy the remaining 49% of stock it did not own in Cavenham, contrary to the promise he made to shareholders in 1976, in a move that would take the company private once again.
[161] Goldsmith redirected his target, and in mid March it was announced that Generale Alimentaire had purchased 45% shareholding in French news magazine L’Express.
[164] Goldsmith did not want to damage Cavenham's share price, and two months later joined the takeover race for Beaverbrook in partnership with Tiny Rowland.
[174] On the 1st January, The New York Times did a Spotlight article on Goldsmith, which pointed out that minority shareholders in Grand Union were fighting Cavenham's buyout of the remaining stock.
The article stated that Goldsmith had issued convertible preferred shares in Generale Occidentale and had borrowed heavily from the French government to fund the deal.
In April Jim Wood told Supermarket News, In about three months the shackles will be removed, and Grand Union expects to be sole to move more freely down the acquisition trail.
[180][181][182] On the 21 November the FTC confirmed that the formal complaint had been filed, on the grounds that the purchase of Colonial would lead to substantially lessen competition in the grocery market.
[198][199][200] With the American economy struggling in a recession, Grand Union in response to the Carter administration imposed a 30-day price freeze on some private-label brands, which was extended for another 30 days in April.
[206] A day later it was confirmed that Bovril was sold to Beechams for £46 million, with Goldsmith stating that it was a strategic decision to get out of manufacturing as 90% of the company's turnover came from its retailing business.
[214][215] In November, Cavenham withdrew its membership of the Confederation of British Industry along with Babcock International, Trafalgar House and European Ferries after the chairman, Sir Terence Beckett announced the CBI would have a "bare-knuckle" fight with the UK government if interest rates were not dropped.
[225] This was on top of the news that the FTC had ruled that Grand Union's purchase of Colonial was illegal and they stated that they must sell the chain and be banned from buying rivals for 10 years.
[150][226] However Grand Union continued to convert stores to Food Markets, which were costing $150 million and in November trialled a talking till scanner at its Stamford, Connecticut.
[240] In the same month, Goldsmith recruited Floyd Hall from Target Stores as the company's new chief executive to try and resurrect Grand Union's fortunes.
[245] In March 1986, Goldsmith moved to clean up his businesses and Cavenham was put onto voluntary liquidation with Grand Union transferred to Generale Occidentale.
[246] The character of Richard de Vere, and his fictional company Cavendish Foods in the BBC comedy To the Manor Born, were a thinly veiled dig at James Goldsmith and Cavenham.