How will C4 take to the new boss?

PERHAPS he had just a few second thoughts about the job when he saw Gavyn Davies and Greg Dyke depart bruised and battered from the BBC. But it is too late for Luke Johnson to change his mind.

While all eyes were focused on the BBC, Johnson quietly emerged from a blue-chip shortlist to be appointed as the new £67,500-a-year chairman of Channel 4.

And the critics are already hunting through the knife drawer. Johnson may be well-known in the City for his involvement with PizzaExpress and as a share tipster, but his experience of broadcasting is limited and, so far, none too happy.

First there was an appearance on the TV documentary Back To The Floor when he ripped off of his microphone, exchanged a few choice words with the producers and stormed off. Then there was a brief, money-burning moment as the backer of the Sunday Business newspaper. He lost more than £200,000.

Notorious for his quick temper and for falling out with many of his business partners, Johnson, 42 tomorrow, will almost certainly bring a different style to the broadcaster's boardroom than his predecessors, urbane lawyer and Equitable Life chairman Vanni Treves and bmi airline boss Sir Michael Bishop.

Staff at Channel 4 must have their fingers crossed that his forthcoming marriage to physiotherapist Liza Pickrell will mellow him.

Johnson has some controversial views on things they hold dear and comes with a record for raising eyebrows in some of his business dealings.

His view on employee rights might challenge the politically correct C4. In 1995, he wrote to the Financial Times to describe employment tribunals as 'kangaroo courts of the worst kind' and protested that women would be able to use them after only a year in their jobs.

He has written on a number of occasions that much of the legislation on insider-dealing is foolish. It is even claimed that Johnson wrote a column in Sunday Business that appeared under the byline of then editor Anil Bhoyrul describing insider-dealing laws as 'wrong' and denying that insider-dealing gave 'an unfair edge'.

Bhoyrul said: 'That was written by Luke. I didn't know anything about insider-trading, not at that time.' Johnson's version of how the column came to appear is not known. Yesterday, he was not answering phone calls. Bhoyrul has since been questioned extensively by the Department of Trade & Industry over allegations that he bought stocks before tipping them in his City Slickers column in the Daily Mirror.

When he was an analyst, Johnson wrote a book on how to get a City job that appeared to advocate ignoring 'the fine distinctions between telling the truth, being economical with the truth and telling an out and out lie'.

But it is his own share dealings that have left an uncomfortable feeling among commentators that he may be a little too clever for his own good.

Though Johnson made his first big money from floating PizzaExpress with Hugh Osmond in the heady days of the dotcom boom, he and a circle of friends invested in a series of unfashionable penny stocks that were then tipped in newspaper columns such as the infamous City Slickers.

In for a penny, in for a pound

A classic case was Blake's Clothing. Johnson held about 8% of the company just before its shares were suspended in December 1999 at 7p. A month later, the shares reopened worth more than 200p as it was announced that it was to be renamed e-xcentric and become a web investment group.

In the same month, Johnson started unloading his stake at a vast profit, though he still had some shares to sell when they had slid back to 12p in December 2000 and e-xcentric was poised to sell back its single investment in a web design company to the original owners for £1.

Still, the punters cannot say they were not warned. As Johnson said at the time: 'Shares are for selling. There's lots of speculation and fingers will be burned.'

Johnson also attracted a lot of City anger over his involvement in another internet stock, Just2Clicks.com. When it was privately owned, Johnson bought into the company for a fraction of its subsequent 150p flotation price. But after a year of relative inactivity, it was decided to wind up the company and redistribute the cash to shareholders. That meant that Johnson and his partners, who did not pay 150p a share, still got their full share-out. In Johnson's case, that meant £710,000.

But not even his worst enemies suggest he has actually overstepped the mark and even those he has fallen out with - most of his former partners - have plenty of good things to say about him, even if his style might raise hackles.

'Luke's a force of nature,' said Stephen Hargrave, Johnson's first business partner after leaving stockbroking in 1988. 'I genuinely believe he could be a great acquisition for C4.'

It might seem bizarre to believe that a man who says public ownership is inefficient is in love with public service broadcasting. But those who know him spring to his defence.

One friend said: 'He is enormously keen to join the establishment. Now he has done it and he will be very keen to prove he was the right choice. He'll work tremendously hard and bring real financial discipline to the channel.'

Johnson is famously careful with his own cash. Holidays are rarely expensive luxury breaks, he drives modest cars and prefers to stay in apartments rather than hotels when he is away. Whatever else he ushers in at Channel 4, it is unlikely to be conspicuous boardroom consumption.