In The News

Construction magnate Frank Lampl passes away

Construction magnate Frank Lampl passes away

Sir Frank Lampl, who headed one of the world’s largest construction companies, has died. He was 84.

Born in Czechoslovkia, Sir Frank had been a slave labourer in the Nazi concentration camps and was the only member of his family to survive the horror.

After the war he returned to his home country but was then persecuted under the communist regime.

However, by 1960s he was allowed to study and he became a senior manager with a construction company. Then in 1968, after Russian tanks moved in to crush the Prague Spring, he and his then wife moved to London.

At the age of 42 he got a job in London as a foreman with the Bovis construction company. 

Several years later he was a project manager with the company. One day he saw a news report about a fire having damaged the premises of Pergamon Press. He made a cold call to Pergamon’s owner Robert Maxwell and clinched the job for Bovis to refurbish the offices.

In 1975 he was asked to run the company’s overseas division, a move which was to prove extremely successful for both the company and Sir Frank.

He was to become chairman of Bovis Construction and Bovis International in 1985, before taking over the chairmanship of the Bovis Construction Group four years later.

He retired in 2000.

Sir Frank always declined to tell the story of his time in the concentration camps. He remained haunted by the experiences and always said his early life was too horrible to relive.

 

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