OBITUARY: SIR ARTHUR NORMAN, BANKNOTE PRINTER

Sir Arthur Norman was no ordinary banknote printer. The former De La Rue chairman, who has died aged 94, once ran a clandestine operation in prewar Shanghai, printing currency for Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government in China under the noses of the Japanese occupiers. He pretended to manufacture playing cards and smuggled the notes out in dustcarts.

His derring-do was typical of the forthright approach of one of the leading industrialists of post-second world war Britain. After serving with distinction as a Royal Air Force pilot in the war, Norman went on to be president of the Confederation of British Industry and a leader of the growing environmental movement in the 1970s and 1980s, promoting the view that conservationists and industry should be partners rather than being at loggerheads.

In 1959 De La Rue created Security Express to transport valuables. Banknote factories were set up abroad, the company became security printer to the New York Stock Exchange and bought a US payment card company.

In 1960 it moved into bank automation and a year later acquired Waterlow and Sons, its great printing rival.

To read the complete article, see: City grandee who once smuggled for Chiang Kai-shek (www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/24ee2242-0091-11e1-ba33-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1c7lfQ4IG)

Wayne Homren, Editor

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