[2] From the mid-1960s Tate reorganised a Canadian subsidiary, Redpath Industries, before returning to the UK in 1973 enthused about American management methods, but also aware of rising competition from artificial sweeteners.
[5] He chaired a triumvirate executive committee when British membership of the European Economic Community threatened Tate & Lyle's core business, with quotas imposed from Brussels favouring domestic sugar beet producers over imported cane refiners such as Tate & Lyle.
[2] As a result, the company began to diversify into related fields of commodity trading, transport and engineering, and in 1976, it acquired competing cane sugar refiner Manbré & Garton.
This had traditionally traded in sugar, coffee and cocoa but, at Tate's instigation, expanded and rebranded to become the London Futures and Options Exchange.
[7] However, the introduction of real-estate futures contracts in 1991 led to a scandal when it was discovered that trading volumes had been artificially boosted, and in October Tate resigned alongside the executive responsible, Mark Blundell.