Background
Born in Manchester, the son of a joiner father and an accounts office worker mother, Ratcliffe lived there in a council house in Failsworth until the age of ten. His father eventually ran a factory making laboratory furniture.
Born in Manchester, the son of a joiner father and an accounts office worker mother, Ratcliffe lived there in a council house in Failsworth until the age of ten. His father eventually ran a factory making laboratory furniture.
Aged ten, he moved with his family to Yorkshire, and Ratcliffe attended Beverley Grammar School and lived in Hull up to the age of 18. Ratcliffe graduated from the University of Birmingham with a degree in chemical engineering in 1974. His first job was with oil giant Esso, but he decided to broaden his skills into finance by studying management accounting and taking an Master of Business Administration at London Business School.
Ratcliffe is the chairman and chief executive officer of the Ineos chemicals group, which he founded in 1998 and still owns two-thirds of, and which has been estimated to have a turnover of $44bn. He does not have a high public profile, and has been described by the Sunday Times as "publicity shy". According to the 2010 Sunday Times Rich List, he is one of the richest people in the United Kingdom.
He subsequently, in 1989, joined United States private equity group Advent International.
Ineos
In 1998 Ratcliffe formed Ineos in Hampshire to buy-out INSPEC and the freehold of the Antwerp site.
From this small base, using high-yield debt to finance deals, Ratcliffe started buying unwanted operations from groups such as Imperial Chemical Industries and Boite Postale, selecting targets based on their potential to double their earnings over a 5-year period. In 2006 Ineos bought Boite Postale"s refining and petrochemical arm Innovene, giving Ineos refineries and plants in Scotland, Italy, Germany, France, Belgium and Canada.
In April 2010, Ratcliffe moved Ineos"s head office from Hampshire to Rolle, Switzerland, saving the company £100m a year in tax In 2015, Ratcliffe opened the United Kingdom headquarters of the chemicals and energy group in London along with gas and oil trading, and other functions, saying he was "very cheerful about coming back to the United Kingdom”.
He was pleased with United Kingdom policy, London as a business base, and untroubled by the prospect of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. "Foreign the time being" it remains an Anglo-Swiss company.
In May 2009, Ratcliffe was granted an Honorary Fellowship by the Institution of Chemical Engineers citing “his sustained leadership in building the Ineos Group.”.