In 1977, together with Alistair Grant, a marketing specialist who he had worked with at Fine Fare, and David Webster, a merchant banker, he founded James Gulliver Associates. In September 1978, he bought the meat company belonging to Manchester United chairman Louis Edwards for £100,000 plus shares and renamed it Argyll Foods, acquiring numerous retail concerns including 130 Safeway outlets.[5] Within 10 years of the purchase, the company was worth £1.7 billion. Gulliver also bought 100,000 of Edwards' shares in Manchester United for £250,000 and was given a seat on the club's board of directors (although fellow director and former manager Matt Busby abstained from the vote to give Gulliver a seat, saying he did not know who Gulliver was).[6] Gulliver later became the club's vice-president. He sold his stake in 1986, but retained two seats in the directors' box at the club's Old Trafford ground.[7] He was also the vice-chairman of Heart of Midlothian.[8]
In 1985, he tried unsuccessfully to acquire Distillers but lost the bidding to Guinness. He retired from the business later that year.[5]
He was married four times: to Margaret Joan Cormack (1958), Joanne Simms (1977), Marjorie H. Moncrieff (1985) and lastly Melanie Crossley (1993).[4] He had five children with his first wife.
