‘Wholly untrue’: Lawrence Jones responds to allegations of unlawful behaviour
UKFast founder and chief executive Lawrence Jones has issued a fierce denial of allegations of serious misconduct made against him in the Financial Times.
Jones said he had not been provided with “any proper details” of the allegations made by unnamed former employees of the technology business about his personal conduct, but declared the “claims of unlawful behaviour are wholly untrue”.
UKFast is one of the North West’s business success stories of the last 20 years and Jones is among the region’s most well-known and best-connected business people.
The cloud hosting business broke through the £50m-turnover last year, as it generated profits of more than £7m. It employs more than 350 people across its Manchester campus, London sales office and data centres.
Lawrence and his wife Gail – who is co-founder and joint managing director of the group – own 61.8% of UKFast. Mr Jones said the allegations were “hurtful and damaging, and particularly upsetting for my wife”.
Private equity firm Inflexion is a significant minority shareholder and controls 31.6%, after a significant investment last December which valued the business at more than £400m. It declined to comment on the allegations or on what, if any, action it had taken.
UKFast was founded in 1999 and has grown to become one of the UK’s largest privately-owned hosting providers. It provides hosting solutions to 5,500 SMEs and 200 mid-sized companies in the UK.
A statement issued on Lawrence Jones’s behalf by London media law firm Simkins said: “The Financial Times’ claims of unlawful behaviour are wholly untrue.
“I have not been provided with any proper details of any of these allegations. These are false claims by anonymous individuals which are completely at odds with the workplace culture which I have always promoted.
“The allegations are hurtful and damaging, and particularly upsetting for my wife, our family and the UKFast team. We have dedicated 20 years of our lives to UKFast and we are hugely proud of how amazing the business that we have built together is.
“We take great pride in the fact that our team have over the past 10 years been responsible for UKFast featuring regularly in the Sunday Times Best Companies To Work For list and similarly in the Great Place to Work list.”
