The Times reports that Philip Johnson, majority owner and CEO of RamFoam, whose company made a £70 million profit on a contract for PPE that was mostly unused has paid himself £13 million. He celebrated his birthday last week by eating a “briefcase of cash” cake on a private yacht.
Ramfoam, a West Midlands firm, prior to the pandemic, specialised in foam products such as jewellery display pads, archery targets and sleeping mats. In April 2020, during the first lockdown, the company developed a PPE visor. The following month, it was awarded a £149 million contract by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). Ministers did not put the contract out to competitive tender, invoking emergency procurement rules. However, the vast majority of the PPE Ramfoam supplied was never used.
In the year to September 2021, Ramfoam declared pre-tax profits of £69 million, a 21,700 per cent increase on its pre-pandemic profit of £317,000. Ramfoam has kept £28 million as cash-in-hand, but its parent company reported paying out a dividend of £23 million to Johnson and three other shareholders.
Full story in The Times, 4 December 2022
