Robert Maxwell

:This article is about the publisher. There was also a songwriter named Robert Maxwell.

Business activities

After leaving Parliament, Maxwell - like many successful publishers - sought to buy a daily newspaper, hoping to exercise political influence through the media. In 1980 he formed the Maxwell Communications Corporation, but was blocked from buying the News of the World by Rupert Murdoch, who became his arch-rival in the British newspaper world. In 1984 Maxwell bought Mirror Group Newspapers, publishers of the Daily Mirror, a traditionally pro-Labour paper. He also bought the American interests of the Macmillan publishing house.

Related Topics:
1980 - Maxwell Communications Corporation - News of the World - Rupert Murdoch - 1984 - Mirror Group Newspapers - Daily Mirror

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By the 1980s Maxwell's various companies owned the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror, the Scottish Daily Record and Sunday Mail and several other newspapers, Pergamon Press, Nimbus Records, Collier books, Maxwell Directories, Prentice Hall Information Services, Macmillan (US) publishing, and the Berlitz language schools. He also owned a half-share of MTV in Europe and other European television interests, Maxwell Cable TV and Maxwell Entertainment.

Related Topics:
1980s - Sunday Mirror - Scottish - Daily Record - Sunday Mail - Prentice Hall - Berlitz - MTV

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Rumours circulated for many years about Maxwell's heavy indebtedness and his corrupt business practices. But Maxwell was well-financed and had good lawyers, and threats of legal action caused his potential critics to treat him with caution. The satirical magazine Private Eye lampooned him as a "Cap'n Bob", but was unable to reveal what it knew about Maxwell's business.

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Evidence suggests that Maxwell's business empire was built on debt and deception. He had "borrowed" millions of pounds of his employees' money from his companies' pension funds to prop up his financial position. In the late 1980s he bought and sold companies at a rapid rate, apparently to conceal the unsound foundations of his business. In 1990 he launched an ambitious new project, a transnational newspaper called The European. The following year he was forced to sell Pergamon Press and Maxwell Directories to Elsevier for 440 million pounds to cover debts, but he used some of this money to buy the New York Daily News.

Related Topics:
1990 - The European - New York Daily News

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By late 1990 investigative journalists, mainly from the Murdoch press, were exploring Maxwell's manipulation of his company's pension schemes. During May 1991 it was reported that Maxwell companies and pension schemes were failing to meet statutory reporting obligations. Maxwell employees lodged complaints with British and U.S. regulatory agencies about the abuse of Maxwell company pension funds. Maxwell may have suspected that the truth about his questionable practices was about to be made public.

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