Mercer -- one of the big rollers playing for major stakes in property market

derek douglas

4 Feb 1993

THE date was May 25, 1981.

After twelve days of hard talking, Wallace Mercer threw his National Westminster Bank cheque for £265,000 on to the negotiating table and bought himself a controlling interest in Heart of Midlothian FC.

But the 34-year-old property developer had bought more than a football club.

The deal allowed him to pass through the stage-door of Scottish life and throughout the eighties and into the nineties it was a platform on which he performed with relish and gusto.

Mercer is a child of the eighties, one of Thatcher's brood.

The booming property market made him a millionaire.

At school in Glasgow he had sharpened his gambler's instinct playing three-card brag.

Later, as property market values reached for the stratosphere, Mercer put these unusual childhood skills to lucrative use by becoming one of the big rollers playing for major stakes.

He once referred to himself as a controlled egomaniac.

It was an off-the-cuff remark that presumably he later came to regret.

Whenever it was cast up in the hundreds of press interviews that he gave he would recant by saying that finance houses were not in the habit of bankrolling those of a vainglorious or narcissistic disposition.

Nevertheless, throughout the eighties -- and especially as he showed his political colours and allied himself to the Conservative cause -- Wallace Mercer was invariably to be found centre stage.

One deliciously irreverent tale had it that in the Mercer wallet he carried an alternative to the kidney donor card.

It was said to read: "In the event of sudden death, call a Press conference."

Mercer has never made any attempt to mask his high profile.

On the contrary he revels in publicity.

The registration plate XX1 adorns his Jaguar limousine while its counterpart on his wife's VW is XX2.

Double-cross one and two; not the motoring mark of a shrinking violet.

In 1981 when he was negotiating to buy Hearts and, to his chagrin and anger, he was asked by the Hearts board to show the colour of his money (hence the National Westminster cheque) he valued his gross assets at some £2.5m.

His father had died when he was 12 and when young Mercer left school he worked by day as a management trainee and at night he studied economics, accountancy and law.

At 25 he moved to London where he managed a property firm with an annual turnover of £15m.

He returned to Scotland as assistant property manager in the development division of an Edinburgh-based construction company.

He put half the sale-price of his London home into his own property development operation.

Pentland Securities and its numerous offshoots became the personal vehicle which he and his wife, Anne, drove to financial success and which enabled him to make his entrance on to the national stage via Tynecastle park.

Mercer and his money were good for Hearts.

According to his "Heart to Heart" account of the Tynecastle story published in 1988 his first piece of business was to relieve the departing manager Bobby Moncur of £13,000 as the price of releasing him from his contract.

The firm smack of financial management had arrived in Gorgie.

However, in the summer of 1990 Mercer's gambling instincts deserted him and he got one badly wrong.

He attempted a takeover of city rivals Hibernian and, after a bitter war of words and even death threats to him and his family, he retired from the fray.

In an interview with me soon after he admitted that he had misjudged the situation and that he had been shocked by the tribalism which his action had precipitated.

Eleven years ago his flair for property deals had been recognised by the Life Association of Scotland, and the Dunedin Property Group was created as a vehicle which would give full rein to his talents and act as the LAS property investment arm.

Dunedin was set up in 1982.

It had a share capital of £500,000 of which Mercer held 25%.

Fifteen months ago Mercer briefed newspaper financial writers in an effort to scotch talk of financial difficulties.

He dismissed speculation that there was trouble brewing and announced that he had exchanged his Dunedin shares for loan stock subscribed by LAS.

Equity had been exchanged for loan stock in a manner which would provide a guaranteed income.

At the time he said:"I want to extinguish any thoughts or rumours that I am going abroad or selling up for financial reasons or being thrown out.

Sorry it is so boring but I am not falling off the Forth Bridge," he declared.

Politicians when they demit office usually do so because of a heartfelt and new found desire to spend more time with their families.

Yesterday, in the official announcement of his departure from LAS, Mercer declared that he wished to concentrate on his other business interests and to spend more time with his football club.

Tynecastle manager Joe Jordan will be, as they say in footballing circles, over the moon.

Taken from the Herald