The Times. 28 May 2011
Blue is the colour, football is the game; At leisure with Stuart Page Going to Chelsea with his son revives old memories for the Page Group boss, reports Laura Pitel.
When his son developed a love of football, Stuart Page was hardly overjoyed at his choice of team. “I wasn’t that pleased that he picked Chelsea,” the former policeman says, gazing out over The Shed, Stamford Bridge’s most famous stand. “Thirty years ago, I used to have to work on these terraces. They used to put us right in the middle of them. It was pretty rough — lots of skinheads with steel-capped boots.”
These days, Mr Page prefers to take a seat and watch the match rather than duck flying bottles. With a demanding job as the chairman of the private security and intelligence company Page Group, there is nothing he likes to do better on a Saturday afternoon than take some time out to come down to the ground with his football-mad son.
It is half-term and Sebastien, 11, has already put Dad through a rigorous, football-themed day. It started with a kickaround in the back garden of their home in Ealing, West London, followed by a lengthy visit to the Chelsea FC shop to pick up, among other things, next season’s kit. Now, the pièce de résistance, a tour of Stamford Bridge.
The pair have Chelsea season tickets and make it to most home games, but this is the first time they have been behind the scenes to pace the same corridors as Nicolas Anelka, Didier Drogba and John Terry.
They see the lavish dressing rooms, replete with Molton Brown handwash and showers straight out of a five-star hotel. Then it’s time to line up in teams and jog out through the tunnel, Sebastien’s eyes widening as he imagines himself in the shoes of his heroes. As the smallest participant on the tour, he becomes the guide’s favourite prop, stretching out on the treatment table and sitting in the chair from which Carlo Ancelloti would — until his sacking last weekend — have faced questions from the press.
Mr Page, who recently turned 60, swells with pride at the sight of his son enthusiastically asking questions and being an all-round good sport. “It’s very special to spend time just the two of us together like this. To grow the business to where it is, I’ve had to sacrifice so much. It’s very hard to hold down a hobby when you’re a slave to a mobile phone, when you’re crisis–driven. Sometime you have to say I’ll drop everything and go. So I spend my spare time with my kids.
“It’s not fair to say I’m going to go off and play golf for two hours, they see little of me as it is. The great thing about football for father-and-son bonding is you can plan ahead. I schedule in his football training, the Chelsea matches.”
Despite the best of intentions, however, it can be hard to switch off. As the head of a company that works in some of the world’s most dangerous countries, turning the phone on silent is not an option. Mr Page is on call 24/7. He started his career as a policeman, joining the Sussex constabulary on his 19th birthday. A career break took him to Saudi Arabia, where he worked for Aramco, the national oil company, before returning to Britain to work in private security. In one of his more colourful roles, he spent two years as a close protection officer for the pop star Boy George who, much to his annoyance, used to call him his “pet pig”.
In 2004, Mr Page won his first contract from the European Union, helping it to transport aid into Gaza and the West Bank. That was followed by more humanitarian security work in Saudi Arabia, Haiti and Sri Lanka — and the company grew. There was a moment when he won an EU contract in Afghanistan, when it looked like that success might be running out of control. “It had got to a stage where the company was growing so fast that I didn’t really have the skill-sets to deal with it.” So Mr Page took the decision to merge the company with EMCIIS, a commercial intelligence and investigations company owned by a former army officer and investment banker who is now his chief executive. Together, they formed Page Group.
Today the company has more than 350 staff across the globe. Turnover in 2010 was £13.4 million, growing steadily from £11.5 million in 2008, and last year profits reached £1.6 million.
The business has two main divisions — intelligence and security — although many corporate clients enlist both. Much of its work in its most difficult countries — Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Haiti — is with government organisations, including the Department for International Development, as well as NGOs.
“I get very angry with the critics of our business who say: ‘You’re dogs of war, you’re mercenaries.’ I am not a mercenary. I don’t go off and take up arms against another country. If we carry guns, it’s because we have to in order to protect the people we’re with. In a lot of these places, if we don’t provide security support, they cannot deliver humanitarian aid.”
When it can, Page Group enlists the skills and knowledge of local people, such as in Afghanistan, where it went to tribal leaders and asked for 150 of their best men. “That way, instead of me telling off an Afghani for being late for work, you go to the local leader. It works much better coming from them.” In return for this commitment, it offers training in security and skills such as plumbing or carpentry that will be of use once stability has returned.
There are challenges ahead. He describes the Bribery Act, which comes into force in July, as unrealistic for British companies working in dangerous places. “The only language that speaks in a crisis situation is money. There is no other way of operating. It is going to put our industry in a very difficult situation.”
For the moment, however, there are more pressing things on his mind. As the tour winds to an end, he says of his son: “He did want me to do penalty shoot-outs when we get back, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Rules of the father and son bonding game
Get behind a team, whether Premier League or a smaller side. Plan ahead which matches you’re going to go to together, so you’ll have some treats to look forward to 6 Sign your child up to play for a local club, which is good for building confidence. Sebastien, a striker for North Kensington FC, says: “Get your Dad to watch and give you some good tips. It will make you a better player”
Stay off the mobile phone. “Sebastien gets upset when I answer a call on the touchline — he says I’m not watching. Now I try to stay focused on the game”
Be sure to keep fit for your kids. “I”m in the gym most mornings at 5.30,” Mr Page says. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to run around the pitch with him”
Make sure you have some good food after all that activity. “We go to our Grandma’s,” Sebastien says. “She cooks us some Mauritian food after the match.”
CV
Born Lewisham, South London, 1951, but grew up in Crawley, West Sussex Education Attended Thomas Bennett Comprehensive in Crawley; left school at 18
Career Joins Sussex Police, aged 19, stationed in Bognor Regis and Brighton in the drugs squad and Sussex special branch; 1974 Transfers to the Metropolitan Police, later assigned to Scotland Yard Special Branch on Anti-Terrorist duties; 1979 Leaves police to work in Saudi Arabia for Aramco; 1981 Begins working on private security assignments for celebrities, including Bryan Ferry and Boy George; 1984 Establishes Page Associates; 2004 Company becomes Page Protective Services and secures contracts with the European Union; 2009 Page Protective Services merges with EMCIIS to become Page Group, with Stuart Page as chairman
Family Lives in Ealing, West London, with wife Maria and children Sebastien, 11, and Sacha, 14 ” It’s not fair to say I’m going to go off and play golf for two hours, they see little of me as it is
Stuart Page is in the gym before 6am most days to keep up with his football-loving son Sebastien, already a keen Chelsea fan and regular match-goer.
Financial Times, 30 March 2011
The Risks of a Job in Danger Zone by Hazel Davies
The temptations of taking a job overseas can be great. The allure of working in a low-tax – or even no-tax – regime is obvious, as are the prospects of a decent climate and comfortable expatriate package.
But before falling for the charms of an idyllic job advertisement, consider recent events in Japan, New Zealand, Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, and more. Giving up the political and tectonic stability of home can be costly.
Migrating to a high-risk zone – and it is not always obvious where they are, as demonstrated in New Zealand – requires safeguards and precautions: it is not sufficient to rely on government efforts to get everyone home when things go wrong. Most staff will be relying on their employers in a crisis – so what structures do they need to have in place to ensure the safety of employees?
The answer is that it takes more than many businesses might imagine, according to Charles Blackmore, chief executive of Page Group, which provides security and commercial intelligence to companies in emerging markets in hostile environments.
The group has just successfully evacuated 75 people (from three clients) from Cairo. Mr Blackmore says: “We gathered the dependents and the employees, briefed them on where to meet, ensured we had the right transport and that the route was secure between where they were and where we were taking them. The airport was closed so we went to Alexandria.” To do this effectively, he says, “you have to make sure you have local security companies on side and you know how they operate”. Page Group usually has its own team on the ground if there’s time to get there, but for a fast evacuation it will have sufficient local contacts with police and military forces.
Mr Blackmore says the role is “to mitigate physical risk, reputational risk and financial loss”. Many of the company’s clients are large businesses in the early stages of building a presence in a country. Most companies would, or should, have contingency plans, evacuation plans and overall security plans for the countries in which they operate. These would cover accidents, natural disasters and potential political instability. “If they don’t have those then we advise on what they should have in place,” says Mr Blackmore.
This could be as simple as giving all employees a “grab bag” (a collection of emergency supplies) and setting up a call-out system so that people are not spread around the country. Some companies have a long-standing contract with the group, only calling on its services when required. Mr Blackmore gives an example of a typical call: “I have 70 workers, 350km south of Tripoli and we have a problem.”
Some of the group’s clients are individuals, who come in two categories. Mr Blackmore explains: “There are those who have knocked around lots of places with an acceptance of risk that is quite high; and there are those who aren’t used to seeing tanks and guns on the streets and who get very disturbed. They’re the first to head for the airport saying ‘I’m out of here’.”
For individuals, the group offers hostile environment training courses in half-day, one-day or two-day sessions (usually undertaken in the home country). These might cover subjects such as where it’s safe to walk alone at night, how to avoid being followed, how much bare skin it is safe to display, where to keep keys, how to secure a computer, etc. “We do awareness training on how to react in the first 24 hours in a hostage situation [the most likely time for escape] as well as driving and medical training,” says Mr Blackmore. “People have travelled a lot so they think they know the risks,” he says. “But we’re also used to instant information. A lot of people aren’t used to rough-ups and aren’t used to being self-reliant.”
According to Nick Stocker: “Security is something people never think about until it goes wrong. And then they ask where it was.” Mr Stocker is associate director at NES Global, a recruitment specialist in energy, engineering and technical roles around the world.
“With some major organisations you will see everything from secured compounds to armed patrols (in countries such as Iraq),” he says. “But individuals still need to be aware of the dangers. We supply personnel but we need to make sure our guys are aware of the risks in these areas.”
Mr Stocker says he often encounters personnel who say they know the area, are used to it and that it will never happen to them. “This,” he says, “is inherently selfish and it’s our job to make sure these individuals know the risks.”
NES has an arrangement with a business consultancy through which it provides a 24-hour advice hotline to its contractors. The consultancy also offers a personal security service. “In our organisation,” says Mr Stocker, “we are dealing with highly experienced engineers for the oil and gas industry. They’ve usually worked in interesting locations such as Iraq and Nigeria. Some of them probably think they have been there, seen it, done it all. We try and make sure we offer everyone the opportunity to be briefed three weeks before mobilisation to check on the political situation, find out what the communication is like, what security is in place.”
Implementing plans can sometimes be a struggle: “I had a debate with someone in the east recently,” he says. “The chief executive said there was no risk and the next day there was a coup in Thailand.” In his role Mr Stocker receives regular updates from the territories in which he has contractors, such as the Ivory Coast, Bahrain and Egypt: “I get three or four updates daily from Libya at the moment,” he says. “This enables me to warn off our own contractors and risk management teams.”
Mr Stocker warns that every organisation should operate such an alert system: “Large oil and gas companies will have a threat-based analysis in place but they will also have very detailed information networks and very capable systems for evacuations.” There are also other things a company can suggest its staff do: Boiling Frog, for example, is a travel and health iPhone application that has been created by former special forces and medical experts. It provides advice on subjects from travel preparation and how to deal with unwelcome surveillance to being shot at and minimising the risk of being abducted. It also deals with typical travel ailments such as sunburn, food poisoning and malaria.
Most companies are beginning to understand what they need. Matt Chilton, a broker executive at London-based Strategic Broking, says he sees an increase in kidnap insurance policies.
The company offers business travel policies which include security briefings, helplines, a personal security specialist service and evacuation. Mr Chilton says: “Kidnap and ransom cover is a growing concern for businesses as they expand globally. It’s important at the very least to have a tailored policy which covers all risks.”
Half the battle, says Mr Stocker, is accurate intelligence: “In a strange part of the world you might be reading conflicting information from the media. “On the ground you don’t have the helicopter view of what’s happening. You can’t provide an armed security guard without knowing what the threat actually is. That analysis capability underpins the whole issue.”
The Sunday Times, 27 February 2011
It’s not over: hundreds wait for rescue; It is being hailed as a textbook operation but many Britons are still stranded in the desert, write Michael Smith and Simon McGee
FOR the past week David Cameron and his ministers have been subjected to scathing criticism over the way the government has seemingly failed to respond when Libya descended rapidly into carnage and chaos.
But as Britons trickled out of the country and ministers were accused of dithering, it emerged last night that special forces and intelligence officers had in fact spent most of last week planning a daring mission to rescue terrified Britons scattered across the north African desert.
The Foreign Office had quickly realised that it would be impossible for British nationals living and working at oil installations deep inland to cover the long, dangerous distances necessary to reach the government’s evacuation flights from Tripoli or its ships docking at Benghazi.
So the Ministry of Defence set about planning an airlift from Libyan soil and executed it amid complete secrecy. They unveiled the successful operation as two aircraft carrying 150 civilians, around a third of them Britons, landed in Malta last night.
Defence sources said special forces “assets” for this operation had been in place since Tuesday.
The operation thus replicated similar special forces operations where members of the SAS have flown to trouble spots dressed as civilians, including the controversial flight BA149 that flew to Kuwait several hours after the Iraqi invasion in August 1990.
The SAS flew to the desert oil facility of Nafora and then split into two groups, heading to different locations. They collected people who had gathered from an expanse four-and-a-half times the size of the UK and took them to at least two airfields.
The oil workers were collected over the last couple of days and corralled at a number of airstrips south of Benghazi, from where C130 Hercules aircraft picked them up and flew them to Malta, a senior defence source said.
The airfields had been checked out by reconnaissance teams to ensure that they were secure and safe for the two RAF C130 Hercules aircraft, which took off from Malta yesterday afternoon to rescue the workers.
Military chiefs considered the danger that the aircraft might be shot down as it flew into hostile airspace, but they decided the risk was sufficiently small to take.
“Of course we had to take into account every possibility to make sure there were no surprises,” said one government source.
“It was a classic textbook operation,” one special forces source said. “While everyone was complaining about how nothing was being done, we already had guys in there doing the business.”
Glyn Jones, an oil worker, was one of the people rescued. He said: “We did not know anything about this flight coming in. The Hercules circled our camp. The guys phoned us and were trying to get as many people as possible out.
“When we got to the airport, everything was very relaxed. It was surreal. It was the last thing we had expected.”
However, hundreds of Brits are believed to have been left behind.
A Foreign Office source said the extraction operations were continuing.
A Scottish oil worker, Jim Coyle, 57, is still trapped and has been told he won’t be out of the country until Monday at the earliest.
He has been told his employers at OPS International are planning to send a convoy of coaches to pick up him and about 130 other workers at their camp.
“He’s at the end of his tether,” his daughter Julie O’Shea told The Sunday Times yesterday. “He has watched his colleagues from Germany and America get taken out ahead of him by their governments, while he has to wait another day for a bus to come.
“It’s supposed to turn up tomorrow morning but he’s not holding out for it. He was told a chartered plane to Malta was landing near his base yesterday, but when it arrived there was just one seat available — for a Maltese worker. “He’s desperate to get out of there. It’s terrifying. Why aren’t the government doing something to help him?” The bus journey to the Egyptian border will take an estimated day and half and may require them to travel through the night.
Earlier in the week Coyle, from Erskine, Renfrewshire, told how men were “running round with AK-47s”.
“It’s very, very bad,” he said. There was poor sanitation, a shortage of fresh water and limited supplies of food.
Charles Blackmore , who runs the Page Group private security firm, which is helping with evacuations, said travelling by road across Libya could prove very dangerous.
“All it takes is one person with a gun at a roadblock and you could have a serious security problem.”
Meanwhile, Page Group was allowed to charter six inland flights between Tripoli and airstrips in the desert yesterday.
Additional reporting: Robin Henry
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