Peter Robert Johnson, is a

Birkenhead Birkenhead (; cy, Penbedw) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liver ...

-based businessman and football investor. The son of a butcher, Johnson helped run a family-owned business Park Foods, a supplier of

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...

hampers in the early 1990s. During this time, Johnson was an investor in

Tranmere Rovers Tranmere Rovers Football Club is a professional association football club based in Birkenhead, Merseyside, England. The team compete in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1884 as Belmont Football Club, they ado ...

football club, during which time they rose from the foot of the Football League to the

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

, and was chairman of Everton F.C. until 1999. After having an estimated fortune of £150M in the early 1990s, Johnson's fortune dropped to £58M in 2004.

Park Foods

The son of a

butcher A butcher is a person who may slaughter animals, dress their flesh, sell their meat, or participate within any combination of these three tasks. They may prepare standard cuts of meat and poultry for sale in retail or wholesale food establishm ...

, Johnson branched the family butchery business out into a

Savings club in 1967. The Park Hamper Company was formed in 1969, and Park Foods became a weekly cash savings business. By the early 1990s,

based Park Foods had made Johnson one of the UK's richest people, with an estimated fortune of £150M. At its peak, Park Foods packed 1m Christmas hampers and delivered them to people who had saved up to £5 a week all year. Johnson also became chairman of Nightfreight GB when it went public on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St P ...

in 1993. In the mid-1990s Johnson branched his interests out into both football and flavoured

crisps A potato chip (North American English; often just chip) or crisp (British and Irish English) is a thin slice of potato that has been either deep frying, deep fried, baking, baked, or air frying, air fried until crunchy. They are commonly serve ...

, after which Park Foods lost £6.2M in first half of 1997. By Christmas 2004, due partly to competition from supermarkets, Park packed just 75,000. Park Group's cash lending book - where loans are typically £300 - between 2003 and 2004 grew 82% to £24.6m. In October 2004, Johnson put the group valued at around £49M up for sale, after the failure of both the flavoured crisp and door-step loan businesses. Park Group was rebranded Appreciate Group plc in 2019.

Football

Tranmere Rovers

Johnson was a

Liverpool F.C. Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club based in Liverpool, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1892, the club joined the Football League the following year and has p ...

supporter from boyhood, and a former shareholder. In 1987, Johnson was approached by local football club

, to take over running of the club and restore stability, after American Bruce Osterman ran up large debts. Johnson took control of the then Fourth Division (fourth tier) club, and they rose to the Second Division (third tier) by 1990. In 1992, they won promotion to the second tier league winning the playoffs at Wembley.

Everton

Johnson also had a spell at Everton which lasted for four years. After Everton avoided

relegation In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. ...

in 1994, Johnson agreed to inject £10M via a

rights issue A rights issue or rights offer is a dividend of subscription rights to buy additional securities in a company made to the company's existing security holders. When the rights are for equity securities, such as shares, in a public company, it can b ...

into Everton F.C., as advised by NM Rothschild from a

Jersey Jersey ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label= Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west France. It is the l ...

based family trust

The Football Association The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world a ...

ruled that one person could not own a controlling interest in more than one club. In accordance with this, Johnson agreed to sell shares in one club by 1998, and resultantly appointed his then girlfriend Lorraine Rogers to look after his interests at Tranmere. It was believed that Johnson would sell his shares in Tranmere, and it was speculated by the press on more than one occasion that he had. On Christmas Eve 1999, Everton Chairman Bill Kenwright struck a deal ahead of other consortia, including one headed by Johnson's rival meat-seller Gerry White, to buy Johnson's 68% controlling stake in Everton for £20M – thus valuing the club at £30M.

Refocus on Tranmere

Upon his return Johnson had returned to Tranmere as President and installed Rogers as chairman. In 2000, the team went on a high-profile cup run, beating several Premier League clubs (Coventry, Middlesbrough and Bolton) en route to the League Cup final where they met Leicester City F.C. and lost 2-1. The teams were relegated in 2001/02 from the Championship (second tier) to the League One (third tier) after ending the season in 24th. Johnson had the club up for sale since 2002. In summer 2006, Tranmere revealed accounts which showed the club owed Johnson £6M, and had plans to sell-off their second training ground at Ingleborough Road as a residential development. In August 2009 when it was revealed that Johnson's football club Tranmere Rovers had been put up for sale on

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...

. Johnson had hired Dornoch Capital, a specialist in selling sports franchises, to sell his shareholding. The listing was removed immediately following a public outcry. A controlling interest in the club was sold to

Mark Palios Markos Palios (born 9 November 1952) is an English chartered accountant, football administrator and former professional footballer. In August 2014, it was announced that he and his wife Nicola were taking ownership of Tranmere Rovers F.C., where h ...

and his wife on 11 August 2014, who became the club's new owners.Mark Palios: Tranmere taken over by ex-FA chief and wife
''BBC Sport''. Published 11 August 2014. Retrieved 21 November 2018.

References

External links

Park Group plcBio at Toffeeweb
{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Peter 1939 births Living people Everton F.C. directors and chairmen Businesspeople from Liverpool People educated at Birkenhead Park School