He made millions out of property in Cardiff over the past 50 years, but Mike MCarthy will be best known in the UK AWP industry as one of the pioneers of the business in the 1960s and 1970s.
‘Big Mac’, as he was known, has died aged 77 in Majorca, on Friday afternoon, after taking ill on his super-yacht. His younger brother, Paul, also well-known from these days (manufacturer Terarose) and today running a plastics factory in South Wales, told InterGame that his elder brother never forgot his AWP industry roots.
“He never changed over the years. The private yacht and the private plane all came with the job, but Mike was always a Cardiff boy and always spoke with great pleasure of his early days in the industry.”
Michael McCarthy was a salesman for Maurice Collings’ Ace Coin Equipment when it was in its earliest days in Charles Street, Cardiff, before it moved to its big factory in Ferry Road. Mike left to help form Signet, a rival manufacturer in 1967 and enjoyed great success with games that included the Safari that older members of the UK industry will remember.
Mike went on to set up Thesis Electronics in 1969 that he eventually sold out to Associated Leisure in 1973 at which point he left the industry to go into the property business.
This is where he made his fortune, setting up Rightacres, today a huge property company with multi-billions in development work going on in Cardiff today. He was until his death the chairman of the group.
Mike leaves a wife, Josephine, who he married when he was just 21, and three children, Paul who is CEO at Rightacres today, Clare and Andrew.
David Snook of InterGame remembers Mike McCarthy well. “He was a larger-than-life character who always had a streak of brilliance about what he did. He had an immediate understanding of what the industry needed and wasted no time in providing a solution. I remember many occasions travelling to Cardiff for Coin Slot and meeting Mike and Arthur Thomas, who was his right-hand man at Signet and Thesis, for meetings and nights-out in the city.
“He has been out of the industry for many years; but he left an indelible mark upon its early formative years.” Our sympathy to his family.
