14 The Docklands & East London Advertiser, Thursday April 26, 2012The Advertiser | Big Read

»The man behind one of the East End’s oldest com-panies, whose business

was threatened by the Olym-pics, now entertains Games dignitaries and celebrities after turning a disaster into a “life-changing” business opportunity.

Lance Forman, 49, now prides himself of being “the only Olympic success story” as Games organisers and sponsors, international sport stars and politicians flock to his smoked salmon empire to sip champagne and enjoy gourmet food.

Everyone from Boris Becker, Steve Redgrave, Sal-ly Gunnell and Princess Anne to Boris Johnson, Ken Livingstone and the Mayor of Rio have been to his £431million Fish Island ven-ue.

RivieraAlongside his traditional

H. Forman & Son salmon smoke house, the site in Stour Road boasts a restau-rant and large events space with a gallery overlooking the Olympic Stadium.

Soon Mr Forman will turn a piece of wasteland he owns next to the building into a £2million entertainment Riviera lined with bespoke hospitality suites for the Games.

For after the Olympics he has his own legacy plans to transform the land into a residential-led scheme with galleries, boutiques and cafés.

But Mr Forman has had to drive his own faith as he bat-tled against what he de-scribes as three major disas-ters in just four years.

First the family business burned down, then it flooded before relocating, only to be kicked off the land to make way for the Olympic Stadi-um.

Mr Forman said: “A lot of people come here and they say it looks like you’re doing

well out of the Olympics. What I would say is that it was a very hard battle.

“It was a nightmare with years of uncertainty and we didn’t know if we would sur-vive it.”

The company, the only re-maining of London’s origi-nal smokeries, was founded by Lance’s great grandfa-ther, Harry, in Stepney Green in 1905.

Arriving from Russia, Harry was one of many Jews who brought fish smoking from Eastern Europe to the East End.

But in 1998 Lance’s father saw the family business,

which had relocated to Hack-ney Wick, burn down before retiring.

“That’s when my father couldn’t face it any more. I had returned to the business four years earlier after training in the factory as a teenager. I then said to my dad I would rebuild it and carry it on.

“But within nine months of opening this fantastic new facility the whole thing was three feet under water.

“That’s when we relocated to a place later earmarked for the Olympic Stadium when London bid for the Games in 2003. So it was just disaster after disaster.”

And looking back Mr For-man says it was “certainly no thanks” to the London Mayor’s business arm, the London Development Agen-cy, which threatened him with a compulsory purchase order, that he managed to se-cure a site only a stone’s throw away and turn a dis-aster into a Games’ success story.

Primed“The LDA were a night-

mare. They strung us along knowing they could take the land any time they wanted.”

But Mr Forman, who grad-uated in economics and management from Cam-bridge University, said: “It was almost as though God had primed me with the per-fect skills for this challenge. Before joining the family business in 1994 I worked as an accountant, political ad-visor and in real estate in Eastern Europe.”

But even with his finan-cial, political and develop-ment planning skills, Mr Forman said he had to “slay the dragon” a different way.

“There was no point in trying to fight it out in the courts because compulsory purchase law is unfair and needs severe overhauling.

“Instead we decided to be-come the biggest nuisance to the government and authori-ties. We asked awkward

Family business has become first big winner of the London Olympics despite ‘disaster’Smoke house hosting celebrity guests

questions at every public meeting, bombarded them with letters and got ourselves into the media.

“To some extent the public-ity turned our faith. Literally a day before we were due to question Seb Coe at a public inquiry we got a phone call offering us to do a deal.”

Asked whether he had ever felt like giving up returning to his old career an emotion-al Mr Forman admitted: “I did. It was just horrible. My friends said you must be the unluckiest man in the world.

“But I’m a fighter and the harder the challenge, the more I begin to rise to it.”

Mr Forman said the could not have done it without the support of his wife Rene, his teenage sweetheart, with whom he has three children.

He attributes his fighting spirit to his father: “My fa-ther spent his childhood in a Siberian prison camp be-cause he was born in Poland. He was a prisoner of war tak-

en by the Russians and es-caped as a child refugee to London. So there is a bit of fighting for survival down the line.

“You’ve got to drive your own faith.

“When the Olympics came along a lot of the businesses just sat there and sucked their thumb, panicked, and didn’t know what to do.

“If you want to make posi-tive change you have to be open to change.

Positive“We made a strategic deci-

sion to do a deal quickly. There were 250 businesses, 75 of them didn’t survive it and 100 are still fighting for compensation.”

Under the deal, the LDA paid for Forman’s new site to the extent that it matched the old place. But Mr Forman de-cided to invest himself by adding a restaurant.

“We could have put the Ol-ympics behind us. But we

had five years of lost time, when the economy was boom-ing and we stood still because weren’t focused on our busi-ness while fighting this bat-tle.”

“So I thought let’s see if we can turn the Olympics into a positive experience for us and capitalise on some of the people coming to the Games.

“Then after a year of mov-ing here in 2007 we kept look-ing out the window from this huge loft space we have thinking: ‘There is a big sta-dium, what can we do with it?’

“We decided to turn in into an events space, which is also an art gallery, and we have now hosted three quarters of all Olympic-related events.

“We were the only show in town and the only Olympics success story organisers could show off to people from all over the world.

“It has been a complete life-changing experience. I now meet all these celebri-

Salmon at the old factory

Lance’s grandfather Louis at Billingsgate Fish Market in 1935

Lance Forman runs the 107-year-old family businesses and has grand plans for after the Olympics

by Else Kvistelse.kvist@archant.co.uk

“When the Olympics came along a lot of the businesses just sat there and sucked their thumb, panicked, and didn’t know what to do. If you want to make positive change you have to be open to change”

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Thursday April 26, 2012, The Docklands & East London Advertiser 15

ties and get contacted by media all over the world who like our story.”

He now expects to make more from his £2million investment in Olympic suites and from oth-er Games entertainment than his factory’s annual turn-over.

One of the biggest lessons Mr Forman says he learned is to delegate if you want to grow as a business.

Artists“In many owner-managed

small businesses they don’t want to trust anyone else,” he explains. “I was that person but when the Olympics came along there was no way I could con-tinue to run the business and fight this battle.

“So I said to my team you are going to have to run the show while I go and slay the dragon. And it worked.

“It means I’ve come back to a much more professional team who can run the place.”

After the Games Mr Forman hopes the area will become a

trendy, post-industrial area showcasing urban art.

“This area has the highest population of artists anywhere and as food artisans we feel a natural affinity with the art community.

“We would like to work with a developer to rebuild our riviera site with a residential-led scheme, but include art galler-

ies studios, boutiques and cafés.”

But despite all these plans Mr Forman believes he will get 90 per cent of his life back once he has come out on top after the Ol-ympic Games.

“One day I will then sit down a write a book about the whole thing full of intrigue of how we acquired this site.”

It’s a Fact H. Forman & Son was

founded by Harry Forman in Redmans Road, Stepney, in 1905.

Harry’s son Louis later took over and then Louis’ son Marcel, Lance’s father, superseded Louis who died just before Lance was born.

In 1998 the factory in Queens Yard, Hackney Wick, where Lance’s father had moved it to, burned down.

It took Lance two years to rebuild it at the same site before

it was flooded in year 2000.

Lance then build a new factory across the river, completed in 2002, which turned out to be on the site of the future Olympic Stadium.

In May 2006 Lance struck a deal with the LDA and the factory was moved to its current site at Stour Road on Fish Island.

The venue was officially opened by Boris Johnson in 2009.