AUSTRALIA: MY BEST DEAL - ALAN JACKSON'S ACI ACQUISITION.

Not content with his successful acquisition of Nylex, BTR chief executive Alan Jackson went on to buy its ex-parent, ACI. By Chris Blackhurst.

If Alan Jackson didn't exist, he would have to be invented - as an encouragement to school-leavers everywhere.

In 1951, daily commuters on the train from Drouin to Melbourne, received a new, 16-year-old companion: the office boy for Kelly and Lewis, a Melbourne machinery manufacturer. Forty years on, that boy is the man behind BTR's £1.5 billion bid for Hawker Siddeley.