Former Newark businessman killed in Mumbai

Newark owes a debt of gratitude to a millionaire yachting magnate killed in the Mumbai terror attacks, say people who knew him.

Mr Andreas Liveras (73) was once one of the town’s biggest employers.

He emigrated to London from Cyprus with his family in 1963.

He worked as a delivery boy for the then tiny Fleur De Lys bakery that operated out of a Kensington basement.

When the owner decided to close the shop five years later Mr Liveras bought it from him.

Mr Liveras arrived in Newark in the late 1970s and persuaded Newark and Sherwood District Council to support him in his efforts to open a factory making gateaux.

His Fleur De Lys factory became one of the largest independent manufacturers of frozen gateaux in Europe and employed around 1,000 people.

Architect Mr Guy Taylor helped him draw up his factory plans and remained a friend of Mr Liveras.

Mr Liveras sold the factory in 1985 to Express Dairies for a multi-million pound sum.

"He was an entrepreneur in every sense of the word," said Mr Taylor.

"He was go-getter, never happier than when he had a project or was progressing something.

"He was like that right the way through his life.

"I remember when the Fleur De Lys factory was completed he became bored.

"He always had a love of boats. He owned a converted fishing trawler and bought a 60ft twin-engine cruiser which the two of us crewed back from Portugal.

Mr Taylor said his friend had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He said Mr Liveras was in India for a trade conference and had gone ashore with a colleague to eat at the Taj Mahal Hotel after being told it was the best in Mumbai.

They were inside when the terrorists struck, forcing them and many others to take shelter in the basement as bombs and grenades went off and gunmen opened fire.

Some 45 minutes before he was shot and killed on Wednesday night, Mr Liveras gave an interview to the BBC in which he described his situation.

The terrorists, some of whom are still holding out, specifically targeted British and American citizens.

Mr Liveras held dual nationality, and may have been spared if he were carrying his Cypriot passport rather than his British one.

Baking was the family business and Mr Liveras’s son, Mr Dion Liveras, and his nephew, Mr Paul Liveras, opened Laurens Patisserie across the road from their father’s former factory in 1992, again employing Mr Taylor’s services.

Laurens, named after Mr Dion Liveras’s daughter Lauren, rose to become one of the town’s biggest employers with 1,200 workers.

They sold the business, which still employs about the same number of people, two years ago to the Icelandic Bakkavor Group for £130m.

Mr Dion Liveras stayed on to oversee a smooth takeover and is due to step down at Christmas.

Mr Taylor, who had lunch with Mr Dion Liveras two days before his father’s death, said: "Andreas was good news for Newark."

The leader of Newark and Sherwood District Council, Mr Tony Roberts, was a backbencher at the time Mr Liveras came to town and was the careers master at the Magnus Church of England School.

He went to Fleur De Lys representing both organisations and met Mr Liveras on many occasions.

Mr Roberts remembered Mr Liveras opening a Fleur De Lys ice cream factory.

Mr Roberts said: "He was a salesman. He sold the idea of a cake factory to the council, then he sold the idea of an ice cream factory and on both occasions the council was right to buy into the idea."

Mr Roberts remembered Mr Liveras’s eye for an opportunity extended to buying up Ford Transit chassis and engines and making them into old-fashioned 1920s box-style ice cream delivery trucks.

Companies such as Harrods bought them and put their own logos on.

The venture had a limited shelf-life as when they became too popular, people started seeing them as the norm rather than a novelty.

Mr Roberts said: "He was very much a benefactor of Newark.

"He brought significant employment to the town at a time when the town really needed it. Newark was a better place for him.

"We should have sympathy, not just for his family but for the families of all of the victims of this atrocity."