Ernest Walter Saunders was born on 21 October 1935 and is a British former business manager.
13 Facts About Ernest Saunders
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Ernest Saunders became known in the UK as one of the "Guinness Four", a group of businessmen who attempted fraudulently to manipulate the share price of the Guinness company.
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Ernest Saunders was sentenced to five years' imprisonment, but released after 10 months as he was believed to be suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
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Ernest Saunders was born Ernest Walter Schleyer in Austria and moved to the United Kingdom in 1938 when his parents, a Jewish gynaecologist and an Austrian mother, emigrated to escape Nazi rule.
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Ernest Saunders married Carole Ann Stephing in 1963, and has two sons and one daughter.
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Ernest Saunders had a career in management with Beecham, Great Universal Stores and Nestle before becoming chief executive of Guinness plc in 1981, remaining in the position until 1986.
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Ernest Saunders was renowned for his ruthless cost-cutting efficiency, earning from his employees the sobriquet 'Deadly Ernest'.
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Subsequent to the bid, which resulted in success for Guinness, Saunders was charged and convicted on 27 August 1990 of counts of conspiracy to contravene section 13 of the Prevention of Fraud Act 1958, false accounting and theft, in relation to dishonest conduct in a share support operation.
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Ernest Saunders appealed against his prison sentence of five years and three expert witnesses appeared at the Appeal Court.
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One of the other expert witnesses, another neurologist, used brain scans and other evidence to indicate that Ernest Saunders's brain was abnormally small for a man of his age, an observation which he said was consistent with a brain disease diagnosis.
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Ernest Saunders worked as a business consultant, including advising mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse from its early days until prior to its flotation.
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Ernest Saunders was later appointed chairman of the executive committee of a US-based multinational petrol credit-card company, Harpur-Gelco.
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Ernest Saunders acted as a consultant to Seed International Ltd, a company based in the Cayman Islands.