Meet Tony Lomas: grim reaper of business

The collapse of Lehman Brothers is bad news for the 4,500 staffers in London who look like losing their jobs, but Tony Lomas is doing good business. Known as the "pop-star pallbearer", Lomas is the chairman of Pricewaterhouse Cooper’s Business Recovery Group. When a business goes under, Lomas is sent in to limit the damage and cut costs wherever possible as the company collapses.
 
Lomas frequently meets with a hostile reception, such is the nature of his job, but in the field of "insolvency specialists" he is the best in the business. He has worked for the same company since 1978 and is a frequent presence in Accountancy Age’s annual Top 50 ranking. His department employs nearly 1,000 people and is currently dealing with no less than nine “recoveries” - each worth more than £1bn. In his career he has overseen the liquidation of Radio Rentals and European Home Retail, which owned Farepak.
 
Lomas sometimes gives the impression of enjoying his job a little too much. Allegedly he could be seen smiling while taking care of chaos at Lehman’s European HQ in Canary Wharf on Tuesday. Notoriously he once cut a family holiday in America short so he could fly to a Rover car plant in Birmingham and visit the works as the company went into administration.
 
He did have one piece of – relatively - good news for Lehman Brothers employees on Wednesday. In an internet briefing, he was able to confirm that the European staff’s September salaries would be paid - "so long as, of course, they are turning up to work." ·