Harry Jayawardena was commercial trailblazer

The passing of “Harry J” marks the passing of the second of the quattro better known as the “Famous 4”. The original Famous 4 of course included Dr. V.P. Vittachi, Harry Jayawardena, Raj Obeyesekere and Zaki Alif. Vittachi though passed away several years ago and the famous four were reduced to the famous 3 – Dr. Vittachi’s daughter having sold out her shareholding reportedly to Jayawardena a few years ago.

Harry Jayawardena passed away aged 82 and he was regarded for his exceptional corporate management skills where apparently he brooked no nonsense from anyone.

Harry Jayawardena had humble beginnings when he worked at the state-owned Consol Expo where he was the manager for tea. Harry J as he was popularly better known had a longstanding personal friendship with the scion of the Bandaranaike political dynasty Anura Bandaranaike.

In many ways Harry J’s rise to fame and fortune had all the markings of a rags to riches story

The apparent failure of the Bandaranaike policies and a victory for the United National Party in the offing, saw Harry Jayawardena gather his three friends and in the unlikely surroundings of a local cafe better known as a “thosai kade” opposite what is now the majestic shopping centre in the cafe called the “majestic” the famous 4 decided to start a business and that business was to export tea from Sri Lanka.

Dr. Vittachi recognised the talents of the ‘boys’ as he called Raj and Zaki and the talents of “my man Harry J” pooling all their resources including their last salaries they managed to gather together Rs. 200,000. Their other regular meetings were at the ancestral home of Zaki Alif not far from the majestic café.

Right from the beginning Harry’s partners agreed that Harry would be the admin arm of the business.

President Jayewardene’s liberal economic policies and the connections of Zaki Alif and Harry Jayawardena saw the Stassen Group go from strength to strength diversifying along the way.

In the right place at the right time 

The transformation from a socialist economy of the homegrown variety where most imports were expressly forbidden to an open free market economy meant that competition was virtually unheard of. Stassen was clearly in the right place at the right time – order after order was fulfilled and it is now clear the four partners at Stassen who operated from a friend’s office replete with leaking roof and a common meeting place in the very early days was Zaki Alif’s ancestral home. 

The Famous 4 had embarked on a roller coaster of a life – all that separated Harry J and his partners were two shares – not a lot to speak of especially amongst “brothers”.

Along the way apart from amassing great wealth and diversifying to maximise opportunity and returns the Famous 4 also opened companies outside of Sri Lanka held under trust arrangements in locations known for its secrecy such as Gibraltar.

The Famous 4 benefited spectacularly during the early months of their new enterprise when in one famous and fortuitous incident they had costed and exported a rather large order of tea – by the time the shipment had arrived at its destination the Government in Colombo had devalued the local currency giving Stassen a local payment more than double they had expected! For a group of young businessmen without access to working capital the additional rupees was likened to a gift from heaven! 

Hard work and as the partners recall “long days” were rewarded with the diversity of their businesses which grew many times in size. Stassen enjoyed good energy although Harry J was noted for his support for Anura Bandaranaike and later his sister President Chandrika Kumaratunga, the Famous Four got along seamlessly with President Jayewardene’s administration.

Earlier political affiliations held them in good stead when President Jayewardene was finally defeated and the Bandaranaike dynasty returned to power.

Harry Jayawardena had always been one of the many political hangers on surrounding the Bandaranaikes while Zaki Alif’s father M.S. Alif was the Cabinet Secretary and a close aide to Mrs. Bandaranaike in the 1970-77 administration, the partnership that appeared to be working quite well suffered various palpitations on its way which came to a head sometime in 2000.

Harry J’s rise to fame

In many ways Harry J’s rise to fame and fortune had all the markings of a rags to riches story.

Harry Jayawardena is considered by many to be the pioneer of leveraging assets from one company to purchase others with many recalling the gall with which Harry Jayawardena bid to purchase the Distilleries Company of Sri Lanka. Many recall that was Legendary Harry Jayawardena.

In 2012-13 came the sensational information that Harry Jayawardena had attempted to transfer assets held in Gibraltar for Milford Exports Ceylon Ltd. into his own name and that of his partner. 

A spirited response came from Obeyesekere and Alif with the company petitioning its bankers in Gibraltar to ensure that the status quo was restored. The matter more or less resolved itself when both the Jayewardenes provided signed depositions to the Gibraltar Supreme Court that they would not be defending the action – in effect permitting the status quo to be re-established. 

Significantly the Supreme Court of Gibraltar gave the applicant, Hambros Bank an order which indicated that the bank were to take its instructions from the majority decision of the board of its client in this instance Milford Export Ceylon Ltd. The Gibraltar Supreme Court clearly did not agree that the bank was to act on instructions of Harry J or from any individuals even if they did own shares in the beneficial owning company.

In the same court proceedings it was revealed that a letter purportedly presented to the bank by Harry Jayawardena and purportedly issued by the company secretaries was for all intents and purposes not written by the company secretaries – that is to say that the letter was in essence a forgery – the company secretaries wrote denying the issuance of the particular letter and the Sri Lanka police named Harry Jayawardena in a “B” report for this alleged forgery.

At the time of Jayawardene’s death the matter appeared not to have been resolved. The potential misappropriation of fraud equals the value of $ 200 million (the earlier highest fraud record in the country was a much lower figure of around 3.6 billion).

During all the period of Sri Lanka’s quest for foreign currency every Government since 2012/13 were fully aware of the existence of $ 200 million beneficial to a Sri Lankan company being held in Gibraltar by the Hambros bank – in spite of the grave economic hardships the country was going through successive Governments chose to ignore what was going on and more importantly ignored the plight of minority shareholders. 

Many speak of the successes of Harry Jayawardena including when he served as the Chairman of SriLankan Airlines but Harry Jayawardena apart from being remembered for his undoubted corporate management skills will also be remembered as an enigmatic figure who appeared to have let down his original partners whom he treated as his brothers.

Harry Jayawardena – his legacy to the Sri Lankan corporate world is without a shadow of doubt of immense significance, his legal manoeuvrings towards his original partners will make essential and interesting reading to Sri Lankan students of law and commerce.