Scotland
Britain's brightest business monthly May 1969 
Conglomerate Success	
By John Fowler 

GRANDFATHER Robert Maclaren, an impressive paterfamilias in his
bristling whiskers, set up his foundry in the south side of Glasgow in
1844 and the business had been kept in the family ever since. But
early in the 1960s grandson Ian Maclaren realised that the old story
was coming to a close. By this time the engineering side had been
dropped and production was concentrated on thermostats and heating
controls. The business was prosperous enough -
in fact it was increasing satisfactorily -  but, looking ahead, Ian
Maclaren knew he could not be complacent.

	The firm of Robert Maclaren, as it was still called, was very
	much a small fish in a pond which included big fellows like
	Honeywell and Elliott Automation. One by one small individual
	competitors were being swallowed by the giants, the mergers
	giving them the capital strength and the research facilities
	which Maclaren knew he needed if he was to keep in the swim.
	How much longer could his business remain on its own?

	Nearing the end of a five-year plan, he was uncomfortably
	aware that a fresh injection of new capital was needed to
	provide new products, broaden the scope of the company, and
	bring new ideas into fruition. And capital on that scale, in a
	private company where all the shares were held by himself and
	his relatives. was not easy to come by. Maclaren did not
	relish going public. since it might have meant loss of control
	of the firm and in the prevailing conditions would invite
	takeover. In the event he decided to go in for the takeover
	business himself. offering for a company in London which would
	have enabled him to establish a broader base.

	The result was not what he had foreseen. His bid came to
	nothing, the company he wanted was ultimately linked with an
	American company and by this time it was clear that Maclaren's
	itself was in the market. 'That started the furore', says
	Maclaren wryly.

	When the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation of
	America showed interest, Maclaren and his fellow directors
	decided that it would make sense to tie up with a firm which
	operated in an allied field and which would back them with the
	strength of a world-wide organization. The ITT at that time
	was ninth on the list of the world's private-enterprise
	employers and moving up.

	The offer could not fail to attract. ITT had started as a
	small company operating telephone services in Puerto Rico and
	Cuba, went into telecommunications manufacturing on an
	international scale with the purchase of the International
	Western Electric Company in the 1920s, and then in 1959 began
	a massive reorganisation and growth programme which greatly
	extended its size and diversified its interests. ITT is now
	big in a number of fields outside telecommunications and is in
	the insurance business, owns the Avis car rental outfit and
	the Sheraton chain of hotels. lts subsidiary, General Controls
	of Glendale California, particularly attracted Maclaren's
	because this company specialised in the gas control d.
	overlapping the interest Maclaren's had already built up in
	the central heating market.

	So at the beginning of 1963 the firm of Robert Maclaren, later
 to be named appropriately Maclaren Controls, became a subsidiary of
 ITT, proudly cherished in ITT publicity literature as the oldest
 established company in the organisation. Even so, the Scottish
 company did not lose its identity. For one thing, lan Maclaren
 remained firmly in the chair, unlike other cases when, as he remarks,
 'the owner is usually slung out'. Maclaren stayed on, and proof that
 ITT was satisfied with its new recruit came two years ago, when he
 was made head of the European Controls and Instrumentation Division
 of the parent. As such he is responsible not only for the Glasgow
 factory but for the Drager factory in Essen, Germany, a smaller
 factory in Holland, and sales organisations in most countries in
 Europe.

	Nowadays he finds that only one third of his time is spent on
	Maclaren Controls business (he has just appointed a general
	manager in Glasgow to take the load off his shoulders) and
	that the remainder is devoted to the European side. Ian
	Maclaren has joined the jet men, the top men with suitcase and
	passport at the ready, and he reckons on spending at least two
	days in the average week on the Continent.

	There was a forlorn moment when a phone call interrupted our
talk as his secretary made arrangements for a lightning visit to
Brussels, at the end of which he asked: 'Does my wife know I won't be
home?' She didn't. Maclaren, 53. has spent all his working life with
the firm apart from the war years, after which he became general
manager and later managing director. His wartime career was
distinguished, including the award of the DFC for harrying German
night convoys from the air in North Africa. Having reached the rank of
Wing Commander he then proceeded to become a TA Colonel in the Argylls
after the war had finished.