Anthony Keith Parnes is a millionaire stockbroker who was involved with Ernest Saunders, Gerald Ronson, and Jack Lyons in the Guinness share-trading fraud of the 1980s; they collectively became known as "the Guinness Four". The son of a London gown manufacturer, Parnes, started his working life as an office boy with a stockbroker. Parnes was a big dealer who acted for some of the biggest names in the share dealing business. After spells with stockbroking houses AJ Bekhor, Rowe Rudd and McNally, he became a "half commission" man with Alexanders Laing and Cruickshank. A stock broker or stockbroker or stock brokerage is someone or a firm who performs transactions in financial instruments on a stock market as an agent of his/her/its clients who are unable or unwilling to trade for themselves. ... Biography of Ernest Saunders Ernest Walter Saunders (born October 21, 1935) was a British business manager, best known as one of the Guinness Four convicted fraudsters. ... Gerald Maurice Ronson is a British business tycoon and philanthropist, and became known in the UK as one of the Guinness Four for his part in the Guinness share-trading fraud of the 1980s. ... The Guinness share-trading fraud was a famous British business scandal of the 1980s. ...

Described as "flamboyant" by The Scotsman, he was sentenced to two-and-a-half years on charges of false accounting and theft, but had his sentence reduced to 21 months on appeal. The Scotsmans offices in Edinburgh The Scotsman is a Scottish newspaper published in Edinburgh. ... Thief redirects to here. ...

The Guinness Affair

Appeals by the Guinness four in 1991 and 1995 ended in partial success. But their convictions were upheld. In 1995 Michael Heseltine, the then President of the Board of Trade, lifted a government "gagging order" preventing disclosure of evidence in the appeals of defendants in the Guinness case.

The now deceased Lord Spens, a defendant in the second, Guinness II, trial, who campaigned for compensation after the charges against him were dropped, said: "We have tried for years to get the certificate lifted."."

He said that the Guinness appeal would make "Matrix Churchill look amateurish. In Matrix Churchill three men did not go to prison; in Guinness I, they did".

He insisted that there was nothing wrong with the Guinness deal and says the DTI inspectors did not understand the rules of the takeover 'game'.

Lord Spens said that the difference between winning and losing a takeover bid could easily be an executive's job and he said: "Takeovers are not genteel affairs, as the inspectors would have it.

"They are very, very serious, life and death businesses."

"Little has changed in the last 10 years. They are just called different names, the practices that went on in the 1980s."

External links

• Guinness Four fail in fight for acquittal, BBC News, December, 21 2001.
• http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/business/articles/882191

Daily Mail, December, 21 2001. http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=80&id=1717882001 The Scotsman, December, 21 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/34910.stm The BBC,Friday, November 28, 1997 The current BBC News logo BBC News and Current Affairs (commonly referred to as BBC News, sometimes abbreviated BBC NCA) is a major arm of the BBC responsible for the corporations newsgathering and production of news programmes on BBC television, radio and online. ... The Daily Mail is a British newspaper, currently a tabloid, first published in 1896. ... The Scotsmans offices in Edinburgh The Scotsman is a Scottish newspaper published in Edinburgh. ...