Henry Staunton - Granada and ITV

Granada and ITV

Staunton was appointed to the board of ITV plc on 3 December 2003 after the merger of Granada and Carlton. Previously he served as the Finance Director of Granada Group plc, which he joined in 1993.

Since then, Granada / ITV has:

• acquired London Weekend Television via a £650m hostile takeover (1994);
• acquired motorway catering company Pavilion Leisure (1994);
• acquired Direct Vision Rentals (1994);
• taken over Forte Group via a £3.8 billion tender offer (1996);
• acquired Yorkshire Television and Tyne-Tees TV (1997);
• acquired Anglia TV (2000);
• acquired HTV (2000);
• acquired Meridian TV (2000);
• merged with Compass Group to form Granada Compass plc (2000);
• demerged Granada Media (2000);
• acquired Border TV (2001); and
• merged with Carlton to form ITV (2003).

On 21 September 2005 ITV plc announced that Staunton planned to step down as Finance Director - to the surprise of the analyst community. He resigned from the Board of ITV plc on 29 March 2006 announcing that he planned to "broadly retire".