Vince Cable blasts Glencore chairman Simon Murray as 'unbelievably primitive'
- Vince Cable labels comments 'unbelievably primitive'
- Embarrassment for company ahead of $60bn floatation
Business Secretary Vince Cable has criticised 'unbelievably primitive' comments by a multi-billion dollar company chairman, who claimed women prefer to bring up children rather than be in the boardroom.
Simon Murray, 71, whose commodities and raw materials company Glencore International is proposing a $60bn floatation, suggested yesterday that he would not 'rush out' to hire a woman who is 'going to go off for nine months'.
The Hong Kong-based septuagenarian was forced to make a grovelling apology for the comments - widely lambasted as sexist - he made in a Sunday Telegraph interview.
Blasted: Hong Kong-based Simon Murray, chairman of Glenmore, has been roundly criticised for comments he made to a Sunday newspaper
The keen adventurer, who was oldest man to reach the South Pole unsupported aged 63 and was only appointed chairman of the Swiss-based company a month ago, claimed that young women were a risk to hire because they have a desire to get married and become pregnant.
The 71-year-old is quoted as saying in the newspaper: 'Women are quite as intelligent as men.
'They have a tendency not to be so involved quite often and they're not so ambitious in business as men because they've got better things to do. Quite often they like bringing up their children and all sorts of other things.
'All these things have unintended consequences. Pregnant ladies have nine months off.
'Do you think that means when I rush out, what I'm absolutely desperate to have is young women who are about to get married in my company, and that I really need them on board because I know they're going to get pregnant and they're going to go off for nine months?'
Critical: Business Secretary Vince Cable said that Mr Murray's comments were 'unbelievably primitive'.
Mr Cable called Murray 'unbelievably primitive' and indicated that his comments could be used to justify any affirmative action in British boardrooms.
Mr Cable told the Telegraph: 'His views are so bad they almost sound like a wind-up. It is simply indefensible and belongs in a bygone era.'
In the Guardian he added: 'These prejudices are so unbelievably primitive they belong to the middle ages.
'He almost single-handedly makes the case for tough action to ensure there are more women on boards and to ensure women's rights in the work place are properly entrenched.'
Former banker Lord Davies, who conducted the Government's review into male-dominated boardrooms, said Mr Murray's comments were 'ill-judged' and 'unforgivable' and unions were shocked by the remarks.
'For a company of Glencore's size to be saying things like that in inappropriate, ill-judged and disappointing,' he told the Telegraph.
Davies's review report shied away from recommending quotas on women in boardrooms, but he said 25 per cent of a company's board should be female and that companies should publish 'aspirational goals' in the next half-year.
Mr Murray, a British expat who has been based in Hong Kong, said of women in the boardroom that they were 'always welcome', but added ' why make a special case out of it?'. Glencore has no women on its board, according to the Telegraph.
Meanwhile head of equality and employment rights at the TUC, Sarah Veale, said to the Guardian: 'We hoped old-fashioned attitudes like this had died with the last century but sadly it seems they live on.'
Mr Murray attempted to salvage his reputation by saying sorry for his comments: 'I apologise for any offence caused by my comments regarding the role of women in business reported in the Sunday Telegraph.
'I'm 100 per cent committed to equal opportunities in the boardroom and across a company's structure, be they private or public.
'Businesses which fail to address the under-representation of women at all levels will be at a competitive disadvantage.'
Mr Murray was also forthright in other areas of the interview, labelling England a nation of 'football hooligans and Dome-builders', which had become 'economically absolutely shambolic'. Its heroes, he said, had changed from Livingstone and Nelson to 'more about David Beckham and perhaps Michael Jackson'.
Mr Murray, who used to run Hutchison Whampoa - the Hong Kong conglomerate that once owned mobile phone company Orange - was a surprise choice to chair Glencore, which will be floated on the FTSE 100.
The floatation will parachute the company into the top echelons of the FTSE 100.
The 485 existing employee shareholders will receive $100m (£60m) each as a result of the flotation and some 65 of these are top commodity traders in line for more than $500m.
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