Bob Morrison: SecTech: Case Study

Via a Solicitor we had worked with in the past, we were introduced to ‘Dan’ (Not his real

name) who was the grandson of the original founder of a business that had since grown to

be very large and very profitable. The business had started out as a Family business but

over time the company had offered shares and share options to attract new talent to the

management team and therefore, the family shareholding had reduced to slightly under

50%.

The current Board had conflicting ideas of how best to move the company forward and

things had become not only volatile, but hostile in that threats had been made against Dan

and his family.

Dan went to his trusted advisor, his solicitor to explore legal options to nip this hostile

takeover attempt in the bud. More importantly, he was looking for ways to keep his family

safe as the threats made had been quite specific and quite sinister. He had to take

precautions to not only look after his wife and children, but also his sister, her children and

his aging mother. To complicate matters, taking a holiday to an unknown location until things

calmed down wasn’t a viable option because some of the children in the family were in the

middle of an important exam period.

Dan had two problems.

1. How to maintain control of the company.

2. How to keep his family safe.

The solution was as follows:

Dan called an Extraordinary General Meeting for 14 days hence. That gave him fourteen

days to win the hearts and minds of the shareholders whose shareholding could swing the

balance of power.

With respect to protecting his family, we implemented a protection plan that would cause as

little disruption to the family as possible yet keep them safe from harm. Equally as important,

it would allow the children to take their exams that they had worked so long and so hard for.

Whilst the real threat was unknown i.e. would the other side really carry out their threats?

The perceived threat was high and that was what we had to prepare to protect the family

against.

To reduce the locations from three to two, we moved Dan’s mother temporarily into his

sister’s house. Not to difficult as Grandma was happy to spend two full weeks with her

grandchildren until after the EGM and his sister was grateful for the help. Obviously, the

grandchildren loved having Grandma at their beck and call.

Both houses then had three ‘live in’ Close Protection Officers (CPOs) allocated to support

the families’ requirements. There was always a CPO located at each house and always a

CPO available to escort the children to and from their exams or anyone else to go about

their normal daily business.

During the ensuing two weeks there was a lot of horse trading went on and there were no

bad actors or visible threats to be seen at either of the houses.

At the EGM we provided additional security to ensure the safety of all at the meeting.

The EGM produced the results that Dan desired and as the perceived threat was then

diminished and so, the additional personal security was no longer required. It would appear

that the threats made were empty threats but that wasn’t known at the time. The perceived

threat was very real.

During the assignment, the security teams delivered a lot of personal awareness security

training to the family members including the children i.e. how to identify threats, what to do if

you think you’re being followed, safe words to confirm that any messages sent to them are

really from their parents etc.

Plans and training extended to:

1. How to lock down the house in the event of an Intruder

2. How to react in the event of a home intrusion

3. How to send a silent alarm to a trusted family member or advisor in order to escalate

a pre-arranged recovery procedure.

4. How to use safe words and stress codes.

In conclusion, it was a security operation well executed with all objectives being achieved.

The company continues to prosper and the family, including Dan sleep well at night knowing

that they have a robust security plan in place and are prepared to deal with almost any threat

that may cross their path.