Michael Sobell

"_The early days also illustrated Weinstock’s aversion to overwork, which continued throughout his career. He had become interested in horse-racing through his father-in-law Michael Sobell, and despite his alertness to any suggestion of slacking by the company’s staff, he and Kenneth Bond would spend occasional afternoons at the races when everything was running smoothly and one of his horses was running at Windsor or Kempton Park."

"Weinstock was happy for R&A to continue as a private company, but he recognised the urgent need to diversify away from televisions before the bubble burst. By 1957 there were twenty-nine competitors making televisions, but demand was bound to peak soon. On top of that, televisions were greatly affected by the government's techniques for controlling consumer spending, the main weapons of which were hire-purchase controls and varying the rate of purchase tax (the forerunner of VAT). Diversification would be easier if R&A had a stock market quotation, which would allow it to issue shares to buy companies rather than paying in cash. Michael Sobell insisted on going for a stock market flotation as soon as R&A had achieved the minimum three-year financial record required by the stock exchange. It reached that stage in 1958, a good time to come to the stock market: business was still booming, and optimism was growing as the economy accelerated in what the 1957 Chancellor Peter Thorneycroft described as ‘controlled expansion’."