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Carphone boss share scandal is no big deal

"The undisclosed use of shares in Carphone Warehouse by founder David Ross as collateral for a loan seems to be of very little consequence," is the opinion of senior financial columnist Tony Hilton.

David Ross as seen [right] in a famous portrait, is not just known as one of the founders of the UK's biggest mobile phone distributor; he's a public figure. He's famous for his Olympic Games interests in London 2012, and also for being a trustee of Britain's National Portrait Gallery. He's no longer famous for being a director of CPW; his name and face have both vanished from the page of directors. But his face hasn't vanished - yet, at least! - from the National Portrait Gallery. Is that the problem?

Support for Ross in today's London Evening Standard paper where Hilton says it is simply political correctness gone mad. He wrote: 

Given that the market frowns on founders who sell their shares, it is common practice for entrepreneurs to get liquidity by raising loans against their large holdings in businesses they founded. Given that the disclosure obligation is or was only to notify Carphone's chairman, not to disclose the arrangement to the market, there seems nothing too serious there, either. 

Carphone's chairman could legitimately have told no one else, so there is no issue of concealing information from the market. Had Ross been more opaque, or devious, by securing his loan against a contract for difference, which in turn could have been hedged against his shareholding, presumably he would not have had to tell anyone - because they had not been thought of when the rules were framed.

So it's not a scandal, just a personal tragedy, says Hilton.

But the talk in the financial district won't see him as a saint.The very same newspaper carries a piece, reminding readers of previous incidents in Ross's career. It seems that when he joined the Portrait Gallery as trustee, the gallery quickly found itself involved in accusations of favouritism - involving portraits of Ross and others - and also involving the Vodafone Foundation. 

Just a few months after Ross became a trustee of the NPG in 2006, the gallery found itself accused of cronyism after paying more than £20,000 for photographic portraits of Ross and several other businessmen which were added to its permanent collection. 

The portraits, which were taken by South African photographers Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, included those of Ross's long-term business partner Charles Dunstone, a cofounder of The Carphone Warehouse, and five Vodafone executives.

The gallery had previously accepted a three-year grant from the Vodafone UK Foundation. At the time, Charles Thomson, co-founder of the Stuckist group, protested: "These people are obscure and unimportant, and to include them in the National Portrait Gallery does not make sense.

So it would seem Ross trod on important toes, and people who might otherwise rally round him, have found an opportunity to kick him while he's down?