Monty Alfred

Business manager and expert on the use of discounted cash flow who deployed his talents in publishing and the Civil Service

Monty Alfred was the chairman of British Printing Corporation's publishing division and was instrumental in the restructuring of the unwieldy division and in the establishment of Usborne Publishing, the publisher of educational books for children. He stood down after the publishing baron Robert Maxwell took over the struggling company, which was in thrall to the printing unions, in 1980. Alfred and Maxwell had inevitably clashed: Alfred was a highly principled intellectual, who had written seminal books on discounted cash flow, while Maxwell, a ruthless entrepreneur, had no time for such high-minded employees. Alfred later cited Maxwell's "amorality" as the reason for his departure in 1981. He went on to become chiefexecutive of the now defunct Property Services Agency, at a time when that government body was facing allegations of widespread corruption. Much later he became the spokesman for an umbrella group of Maxwell pensioners which successfully reclaimed much of the £460 million Maxwell stole from his pension funds. Arnold Montague Alfred was born in...