Polly Peck was a FTSE 100 darling — then its founder stole £146M and fled the country

Polly Peck International was founded in 1940 as a small fashion house. In 1980, Turkish Cypriot businessman Asil Nadir bought a 58% stake for £270,000 and turned it into one of the UK's fastest-growing companies. Under Nadir, Polly Peck expanded into textiles, electronics (Vestel, Sansui), packaging, hotels, bottled water, and fruit (buying Del Monte's fresh fruit division for $875 million in 1989). At its peak it had 17,227 employees, over 200 subsidiaries, and a market cap of £1.7 billion, putting it in the FTSE 100.

The growth was funded by theft. Between 1988 and 1989, Nadir made 88 separate payments totalling £199 million to subsidiaries in Turkey and Northern Cyprus. Assets worth £25.5 million were secretly registered in his name. On 20 September 1990, the Serious Fraud Office raided South Audley Management, the company controlling Nadir's family interests. Trading was suspended. Polly Peck collapsed with £1.3 billion in debt.

Nadir was charged with 13 counts of theft and false accounting totalling £34 million (overall amount stolen: £146 million). In 1993, after his £3.5 million bail lapsed, he fled to Northern Cyprus, which had no extradition treaty with the UK. He returned voluntarily in 2010, was convicted in 2012 on 10 counts of theft totalling nearly £29 million, and sentenced to 10 years in prison.