Vic Lock, the founder of Leasing Life who died last month aged 63, gained a reputation for breaking stories while also being a supporter of the equipment finance industry. Brendan Malkin looks back at his life
Hardworking, dedicated and popular, Vic Lock was the founder of Leasing Life and one of the first to give a voice to the European equipment finance industry.
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For a decade after Leasing Life’s formation in 1993, Vic worked tirelessly and often almost single-handedly to build up the magazine and establish a
Europe-wide following.
Described as a quiet, diligent and modest person, he won the confidence of many senior people in the leasing industry and, as a result, gained a reputation for being the source of ground-breaking news for the equipment finance sector.
Derek Soper, the founder of the consultancies The Alta Group and the International Advisory Associates, who invested in Leasing Life along with several other senior
members of the leasing community, said: “Vic always knew, well ahead of the pack, what was happening: in deals, to people, inside company news and the ‘gossip’ that went with it all.”
As well as gaining the trust and respect of many in the leasing sector, Vic also supported the leasing associations of countries in Central and Eastern Europe at a time
when they had just emerged from Communist rule.
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By GlobalDataBrian Rogerson, who worked alongside Vic as a journalist at Leasing Life, recalled: “Vic would encourage these associations. They were coming out from behind the Iron
Curtain and getting themselves established.
“No one else was reporting on what they were doing and he was at the right place at the right time.”
It was this commitment to supporting these new and struggling associations that meant that one of them, the Czech leasing association, at its 10th anniversary, described Vic Lock as “a legend” in honour of his support for its work.
UK lessors also benefitted from Vic’s willingness to help in the development of fledgling leasing companies.
Sam Geneen, the managing director of Richmond-based Five Arrows Leasing Group, recalled: “He was there when I needed him, specifically when we started the business 21 years ago and in need of some publicity. He gave us full-page coverage.”
It was not unusual, particularly during the early days of Leasing Life, for Vic to not just write the articles for the magazine, but also lay them out on the page and
then to deliver them by hand to the printers. He also sourced many of the adverts that served as the lifeblood of the publication, while at the same time ensuring that his editorial independence was not compromised.
Often working 12 hour days and some weekends, he would pack as much into a busy day as possible. He became well known for his meetings at the Institute of Directors on Pall Mall in London, at which lessors would literally queue up waiting to be interviewed by him. Having usually sourced around four stories from these meetings, he would then turn them into articles during his train journey back to Kelvedon, in Essex, where the magazine was then based.
The schedules he imposed on himself during his visits to overseas-based lessors were equally punishing.
John McGerty, a consultant at the Institute of Bankers in Ireland, said of his visits to see lessors in Ireland: “His schedule was usually exhausting just to think about, but he
always managed to meet everyone on his list and his findings were distilled in the next edition of Leasing Life.”
As well as refusing to invest heavily in staff, preferring to keep control of the magazine himself, he also kept his costs down by not splashing out on expensive offices.
According to Bob Munro, chairman of Field Solutions who was also the chairman of VRL, the company which ran Leasing Life during Vic’s 10 years in charge of the
business, said: “He was very frugal and hard working. As I recall, his office furniture came to around £100 altogether.”
Vic also planned, prepared and participated in a string of conferences at Leasing Life, a skill that he inherited from his days at the Euromoney-owned Asset Finance
& Leasing Digest where he led such industry events as the International Rail Finance Conference and the Aircraft Finance School.
After selling Leasing Life in 2003 to VRL Publishing, whose successor, Financial News Publishing, owns the title today, Vic retired and spent much of the next few years
enjoying life with his family, including his wife Linda, whom he married in 1966, and his two sons Richard and Mark, and playing golf at his second home in Mallorca and a club in Lexden near Colchester.
Sport was one of Vic’s real passions. Besides his many mountain walks, which included finishing the Inca trail in 2006 to mark his 40th wedding anniversary, he also sailed dinghies, canoed, windsurfed and skippered a yacht across the Irish Sea, as well as learning to become a life-saver and drive rescue boats.
Also, in his earlier days, when he lived with his family in Coggeshall, in Essex, he volunteered as a youth worker and later helped with the running of the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme at his local Honywood School, where he also became a governor.
Among a flood of emails to Leasing Life from individuals who had known Vic in his professional capacity, one communication from Dr Roger Gewolb, an automotive and
asset finance specialist, reflects the admiration so many had for Vic.
Gewolb said: “He was a very special guy. Always willing to talk, he was a great listener, always up for new ideas, always focused, even when he didn’t know the answers, he
knew he would find them. May he rest in peace.”
A service of remembrance, which took place on November 9 at Colchester Crematorium, was attended by around 200 people.
The Leasing Life team would like to extend its deepest condolences to Vic Lock ’s family and friends.
