Peter Daresbury is Chairman of Auriant Mining, a listed gold producer.
Peter is a businessman who, throughout his career, has held Board positions in a range of listed and unlisted companies. In addition to his position at Auriant Mining, he is a Director of Pesto Restaurants, RusAnt, a Russian antimony mining company and Chairman of the Investment Advisory Committee of PHD Equity Partners LLP, an equity fund based in the north west of England. He is also Chairman of Jockey Club Catering and Sen - Space TV.
Previous Board roles include: Chairman at Nasstar plc, a leading cloud service provider, Chairman of Stellar Diamonds plc, Director of Bespoke Hotels, Chairman of Mallett, Senior Advisor at Fleming Family & Partners and Chairman of The North West Business Fund. He was Founder and Chairman of Highland Gold Mining, which he guided through an AIM listing. As Chief Executive of The Greenalls Group plc, he led the company into the FTSE 100. He played key roles in the listings of Evraz and Kazakhgold. He also led the revival of the famous Aintree Racecourse, where he was Chairman for twenty five years and he was, until recently, a Steward of the Jockey Club. He also served as Chairman of Haydock Park Racecourse from May 2015 until January 2020.
Lord Daresbury is an accomplished sportsman, has ridden in the Grand National and rode over 270 winners as an amateur jockey. He was Champion National Hunt Amateur Jockey twice and whilst at Cambridge University achieved a double blue, in Fives and Real Tennis.
Auriant Mining AB is a Swedish junior mining company, focussed on gold exploration and production in Russia. The company is listed on the Swedish NASDAQ OMX First North Premier stock exchange and is currently Russia’s largest, publicly traded, junior gold producer.
Nasstar PLC was established in 1998 and is one of the leading managed IT service providers in Europe with a particular focus on tailor-made cloud hosted solutions and fully-managed professional services.
Nasstar PLC has four wholly owned subsidiary brands: Nasstar (UK) Limited, Denara Holdings Limited (which owns Nasstar Group Limited), Kamanchi Limited and Modrus Limited.
Pesto Restaurants is a growing chain of Italian restaurants with a focus on delivering great food and hospitality at sensible prices. Established in 2006, there are now ten restaurants in different locations across the UK.
RusAnt was set up in 2006 and is a privately-held Russian antimony mining company with pre-production and exploration antimony assets in eastern Russia.
Antimony is a rare metal with important uses in a number of growing industries, including flame retardant and PET.
PHD Equity Partners is a dedicated independent investment and advisory private equity firm that is owned and controlled by the Partners. The company is focussed on opportunistic transactions involving UK-based small and medium sized companies.
Haydock Park Racecourse is one of the major racecourses in the country. It combines the best of flat and jump racing and hosts some of the most popular events in the Northern Racing calendar.
The Jockey Club is the largest commercial group in British horseracing. Its assets include Cheltenham, Aintree, Epsom Downs and Newmarket racecourses.
Governed by Royal Charter, and with all profits invested back into the sport, The Jockey Club focuses its resources, influence and assets on ensuring the sport remains the best in the world.
Jockey Club Catering is a venture partnership between Jockey Club Racecourses, the UK's leading racecourse and venues group, and Compass Group UK & Ireland. It was formed in 2009 and provides top quality catering, hospitality and service at fifteen racecourses nationwide.
Stellar Diamonds plc
Chairman
Jan 2008 - Jan 2018
London, UK
Stellar Diamonds was an AIM-listed diamond exploration company established in 2005 with assets in Sierra Leone and Guinea, West Africa.
Bespoke Hotels was founded in 2000 and has become one of the UK's largest hotel management companies. It has grown to represent over 200 properties worldwide and currently stands as the UK’s largest independent hotel group.
Mallett PLC
Chairman
2007 - Dec 2014
Newbury, UK
Mallett was established in 1865 and has since grown to be one of the world’s foremost brands for fine and decorative arts. Mallett specialises in the highest quality English and continental furniture and has an international clientele of private individuals, museums and interior designers.
The company was sold to Stanley Gibbons in December 2014.
Aintree Racecourse is part of The Jockey Club and home to the Grand National, a race which has a worldwide TV audience of 600 million.
The Lord Daresbury held the Chairmanship for 25 years, during which time he handled two major crises, one in 1993 (the year of the void race) and the other in 1997 (the year of the IRA bomb threat).
North West Business Finance Limited is an independent, private sector, not-for-profit company, limited by guarantee, established to oversee the delivery of The North West Fund. This is one of the largest public sector VCLFs in Europe and the largest in the UK.
Tewlint Services Ltd
Chairman
2005 - 2011
Tambov, RU
Tewlint Services was set up to acquire and farm land in the Tambov region of Russia, 250 miles southwest of Moscow. The land and other assets were successfully sold in 2011.
Highland Gold Mining Limited was set up for the purpose of acquiring, consolidating and developing a portfolio of quality gold mining projects in the Russian Federation with good growth potential.
The Greenall's Group Plc
Managing Director, Chief Executive
1981 - 2000
London, UK
Lord Daresbury was Chief Executive from 1993-2000, managing the Group which emcompassed franchised, tenanted and managed pubs & restaurants, De Vere Hotels, G&J Greenall, Cellar 5, Tavern Wholesaling and Stretton Leisure.
Sen's vision is to democratise space by streamlining real-time videos of our ever-changing planet, to billions of people. Its aims to help people, governments and industry to understand and respond better to the planet.
Timico is an independant service provider specialising in managed networks, managed hosting and unified communications solutions for mid-size businesses. Lord Daresbury held the role of Non-Executive Chairman from 2014-2016 and was Deputy Chairman until February 2017.
Lord Daresbury worked closely with Stonehage Fleming (then Fleming Family & Partners) as a Senior Advisor. During this period he also sat on the Investment Committee of Stonehage Fleming Private Equity which offers clients of the main family office the opportunity to invest into high growth smaller UK companies through their dedicated fund programme.
Sumatra Copper & Gold was established in the United Kingdom in 2006. It is a gold and silver producer with a range of highly prospective tenements in Southern Sumatra, Indonesia within a world-class epithermal gold province.
It is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 2009.
KazakhGold Group Ltd
Non-Executive Chairman
2005 - 2007
London, UK
KazakhGold is one of the leading gold producers in Kazakhstan with mining rights to the largest gold reserves in the country.
EVRAZ is a steel, mining and vanadium business with operations in Russia, Ukraine, the United Stated, Canada, the Czech Republic, Italy and South Africa. It is among the top steel producers in the world and the Group is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Lord Daresbury championed the successful transformation of The Greenalls Group Plc into De Vere Hotels following the sale of the pub and restaurant businesses. This revitalised the Group to become a luxury hotel and leisure company.
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Philanthropy
The Countryside Foundation for Education
Chairman
1990 - 2000
Hebden Bridge, UK
The Countryside Foundation for Education, now Countryside Learning, is a charitable institution that aims to educate, inform and inspire children, parents and teachers so they can enjoy and appreciate the countryside and have a greater understanding of the wide range of issues surrounding it.
