Following a period in Belize after completing his education, Ashcroft returned to
hitchhike around Europe, and then for a short period of time became the manager of a rock and roll band. In 1967, Ashcroft joined
Carreras Tobacco as a management trainee. He left Carreras in 1969, joining Pritchard Services Group, a cleaning and business services company, after several months unemployed. On exiting Uni-Kleen in 1977, his next purchase was
Hawley Goodall, another poorly performing company, this time in camping equipment manufacture. Ashcroft used Hawley to make a series of acquisitions, transforming the company into a business services group, ranging from janitorial services for hospitals and offices, to
car auction services, and later with a focus on the security services industry. Through the sale of the car auctions division to the fast-expanding
British Car Auctions (BCA), he formed a lifelong friendship with
David Wickins, whom he would later help take a majority stake in
Lotus Cars, as well as provide finance for other joint-ventures. By 1981, Hawley had made its first acquisitions in the United States, and its total revenues had grown to $27 million. By early 1983, Hawley had built up a 20% stake in pharmaceutical packaging manufacturer Cope Allman. Ashcroft offered to increase his stake to 29.9%, just below the 30% level at which a formal bid for the entire company must be launched. Ashcroft and Cope Allman fought bitterly over the purchase share price and current holdings, with Cope Allman reporting Ashcroft and Wickins to the
Takeover panel, after discovering that BCA had built up a 13.5% in the company. But the takeover panel found that Ashcroft and Wickins were operating independently, so Hawley was able to increase its holding to 29.9%. At this point the combined holdings of Hawley and BCA in Cope Allman amounted to 43.5%, giving them the power to introduce sweeping changes without launching a full bid. In 1985 Ashcroft and Wickins bought car sales dealership
Henlys Group via a Canadian-registered company, Mipec. Controlled by Ashcroft's Hawley Goodall, Henlys was merged with the already-owned funeral
hearse maker
Coleman Milne to form a motoring division. In 1989, Hawley Goodall sold its motoring division consisting of Henlys and Coleman Milne to the
Plaxton Group, the bus and coach manufacturer based in
Scarborough, North Yorkshire. 1987 was a key year for Hawley. In the early part of the year, it bought Crime Control Inc. based in Indianapolis, for $50 million, placing the company in fourth place in the U.S. security market. Later in the year it bought
ADT Security Services, the largest electronic security company in the United States. This purchase transformed Hawley into the leading security services business in the United States, and resulted in the majority of its revenues coming from the North American market. As a result of the acquisition,
Bermuda-registered Hawley changed its name to
ADT Inc. and decided to refocus its business around security services. At the end of 1987, the company sold its North American-based facility services business to
Denmark's
ISS A/S. In 1987, Ashcroft bought out the existing shareholders of Wickins' BCA via Hawley Goodall. Based at
Blackbushe Airport to allow Wickins access to his treasured aviation division, which flew both
Jet Ranger helicopters and
Beechcraft King Air turbo prop aircraft, Ashcroft, who has a disliking for such flippant expenditure, immediately sold off the aircraft. Wickins joined the board of Hawley Goodall, remaining there until the Tyco takeover. He retired from BCA in 1990. In 1995, to allow for the Tyco transaction, the group decided to divest itself of BCA. The residual North American arm was sold to trade buyers, while the European arm was sold to a consortium of some 40 private investors, including Ashcroft via his Belize-based investment company. In September 2006, BCA was bought by the UK-based
investment banking arm of private bank
Samuel Montagu & Co., a division of
HSBC, personally netting Ashcroft over £200 million. In 1997, ADT was sold by a
reverse takeover to US conglomerate
Tyco International for $6.7 billion, allowing Tyco to become tax-efficient. Ashcroft disposed of large amounts of the Tyco stock which he had acquired as a result of the sale of ADT, stating that he needed the capital to diversify into other things and that he never retained a substantial stake in any enterprise which he did not control. Ashcroft nevertheless continued as a non-executive director of Tyco, a role he still held in 2002 when Tyco CEO
Dennis Kozlowski was arrested in New York in connection with personal tax offences. Unease had already been expressed at Tyco at some of Kozlowski's corporate decisions and Ashcroft was amongst the directors who appointed lawyer
David Boies to investigate irregularities in the company.
Belize and cross holdings Ashcroft has close business and other connections with the Commonwealth country of Belize, and served as the country's ambassador to the United Nations between 1998 and 2000. Barrow also warned
David Cameron that relations with the United Kingdom would be damaged if Ashcroft were given a senior position in government. In 1984 Ashcroft formed Belize Holdings (BHI). In 1987, BHI led the formation of Belize Bank Holdings (BBH), which took control of
Belize Bank from the
Royal Bank of Canada. Belize Bank has become the country's largest financial institution, controlling some 50 per cent of the market. BBH developed local and international interests in facilities services, finance and telecommunications. Belize Bank itself formerly held a majority stake in
Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL), until it was nationalised by the Government of Belize.
Other business activities Ashcroft also has significant interests in the following companies quoted on the
Alternative Investment Market:
Restore plc, WeAre20:20 and Impellam Group. Having attempted a takeover of Corporate Services Group in 1999, in June 2006 he increased his stake to 28.5%, prompting speculation that he might make an offer for the remaining shares in the company. In May 2008 the merger of Carlisle Group and Corporate Services Group to form
Impellam Group was announced. In September 2007, Ashcroft agreed to the sale of AIM listed cleaning services supplier OneSource. Based mainly in the United States, it was the old North American cleaning business of ISS that Ashcroft had sold to them when refocusing Hawley in 1987. Bought in 1997 for $1, he agreed the sale of the company at a value of £179m. In March 2006, he became the major shareholder in English professional
football club
Watford, owning up to 42% of the club's shares. In September 2006, he accepted a bid for
British Car Auctions (BCA) worth £450m, netting him a personal gain of £200m. Ashcroft has a 72.3% stake in
English sparkling wine producer Gusbourne, which he acquired in 2013 for £7 million. ==Personal life==