Rich List boss goes as investors seek payback

A MAN ranked in the Sunday Times Rich List has been replaced as chairman of his own company. Inventor Willie Johnson's estimated £495m. fortune was said to be based on his shareholding in Durand Technology Ltd. Shareholders, who had invested £6m. in the firm, were concerned about the way it was being run. But Dr Johnson denied he had been removed as company chairman. He said any suggestion was 'absolute rubbish'. 'I'm stepping down as chairman because I'm getting to an age when all the flying around involved is getting too much for me,' he said. 'I decided to resign myself. I'm still a director and I've still got all my shares.' Healthspan Group owner Derek Coates takes over as chairman. A shareholder in DTL for almost three years, Mr Coates said the company had been going nowhere and that ideas needed to be commercialised. The former board resigned and has been replaced. Dr Johnson will still act as a consultant. Healthspan finance director Michael Lawther will be a non-executive director to ensure the right monetary controls are in place. 'I'm going to develop DTL as a business and create value for the shareholders,' said Mr Coates. 'We are now putting our foot on the accelerator to bring these technologies to the market.' The hub of the company will be moving to Guernsey. 'When we make profits, the Guernsey exchequer will receive the revenue instead of Gordon Brown.' Because there is no bilateral agreement between the UK Government and Guernsey on royalty income, DTL would be liable for income tax in both jurisdictions, so it made sense to move the company here. Mr Coates said it was a new beginning. He added that DTL had the necessary skills at its base in Shrivenham, Wiltshire, and it was now a matter of commercialising the ideas. This was where he came in. 'At Shrivenham, we have 10 PhDs and a host of other degrees, so the brainpower is the size of a planet,' he said. Ideas would be formulated and developed in a similar way to a university think tank and DTL would become a centre of technical excellence. DTL has four divisions - display, security and imaging, health care and leisure and environment. It also has three subsidiary companies - Microsharp Corporation, Microbar Security and the Willit Corporation. 'A cancer-detection project is one of the many technologies that we will now be bringing to fruition,' said Mr Coates. He believed that one project would be as revolutionary as the mobile telephone. 'It will be a few years before it reaches people's living rooms, but it will be generating revenue by next year.' Dr Johnson said he was delighted that Mr Coates had acquired a major shareholding. 'There is a time in the life of most companies that have successfully developed new technologies to hand over the reins to a team who possess different commercial skills in order that those technologies are brought to fruition,' he said. 'With my new-found freedom, I shall be able to concentrate on nothing but my true love - inventing.' Mr Coates formed Healthspan - supplier of the largest health supplement range in the British Isles - in 1996. It has 120 employees.