Bill Miller profile: The factory worker’s son who became a business Mr Fixit

BILL Miller has never sought to feign interest in the game of football. The 65-year-old was born in Detroit, and his early ambition was to forge a career in Motor City by following in his father’s footsteps into the car manufacturing industry and becoming a line supervisor at Ford.

However, he ended up attending the University of Michigan, earning a degree and MBA in engineering, before taking his first tentative steps in business.

Working in large firms such as Neptune International, his role was to turn around troubled units and subsidiaries, and he quickly realised his own vision of business, later telling Forbes magazine: “The big companies weren’t geared toward the shareholders. They were geared toward a bureaucracy.”

He soon set up his own empire, Miller Industries, buying Holmes, a bankrupt company that had once held a 75 per cent share of the US tow-truck industry, followed by two other well-known names, Challenger and Century.

He closed three of five production factories and pared the new company of around 300 distributors, before acquiring a series of European subsidiaries such as UK firm, Boniface Engineering.

It was a risky strategy which saw Miller Industries make initial losses, but as of last year, Miller enjoyed annual sales of £255 million, some £35m of which came from outside the US.

A keen follower of racing, yachting and golf, Mr Miller has previously dipped his toe in the realm of sport, but it proved an unsuccessful venture. As chief executive of Team Racing Auto Circuit, a stock car racing syndicate, he hoped to challenge the might of Nascar.

The project was launched in 2001, but within three years, it collapsed after failing to sell sponsorship.