by Real Business - Wednesday, 28th November 2007

ENTREPRENEURS’ ENTREPRENEUR: Simon Nixon

How many company founders buy out their former partner’s shares for £162m in cash, float their business on the London Stock Exchange and then announce maiden six-month results with sales up 63 per cent, margins up from 58 per cent to 66 per cent, and pretax profits of £6.2m?

Simon Nixon’s creation was the last major flotation to get away, just as the credit crunch hit market sentiment. The Financial Times described Moneysupermarket.com as “a dynamic company that invests heavily in its product to keep ahead of burgeoning competition”.

Nixon started his Cheshire-based business in 1999 – ten years after Charles Dunstone – but it is just as remarkable a journey. His website, which compares prices in four main areas – money, travel, insurance and motoring – now has a stonking four million users and is the largest financial services price-comparison site in the UK, with a 49 per cent market share.

The driving force behind this astonishing company is surprisingly insecure. As Nixon once told Real Business: “Some people are driven by admiration. My inspiration is fear of failure.” His nervous energy first came to the surface when he dropped out of university (where he was studying accounting), in 1993, to set up a mortgage sourcing magazine. He has never stood still since.

Since floating Moneysupermarket.com in July, 39-year-old Nixon has already announced his first foreign venture with a German platform called Icero.de. It’s the first stage of his “Drang Nach Osten” – or eastward expansion. And if his past experience is anything to go by, failure looks very unlikely.

COMPANY OF THE YEAR: AES Engineering

Two years after buying AES Engineering, Chris Rea was faced with a situation that threatened to wipe out the company.

AES had traded as the UK distributor for an American mechanical seal manufacturer, but in 1981, the manufacturer withdrew the distributorship. AES lost the market for its product in an instant, while most of its workforce jumped ship.

Vowing never to be wholly reliant on a third party again, Rea decided to manufacture a range of mechanical seals himself and acquired a small machine shop.

Fast-forward to 2007 and AES is a company that’s achieved an unbroken track record of turnover and profit growth during the past 25 years. In 2006, AES recorded sales of £62m and profits a shade above £6m. It’s now the fourth-largest manufacturer in its market in the world.

And it’s not stopping there. AES wants to become the largest international mechanical seals company by 2029 – the 50th anniversary of Rea’s acquisition – and it took on secondary investment from private equity firm 3i in October 2007 to help it achieve this goal. The investment increases 3i’s equity stake to 40 per cent (Rea still retains a majority interest) and values the business at a whopping £100m.

ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR: Steve Leach

Steve Leach is a self-confessed “Big Mouth”. Born in Forres, Scotland, he left school with a handful of qualifications, eager “to sample what life had to offer”. He started out in the rag trade and lived out every 21-year-old lad’s dream, running lingerie company Silky Drawers.

Several businesses later, fascinated by the rise of the internet, Leach followed his hunch that search marketing would be the most lucrative online niche and launched Bigmouthmedia in 1997, now the world’s largest digital marketing agency.

This canny entrepreneur has taken his brainchild from a first year turnover of £200,000 to £70m this financial year. Under his leadership, the company has gone from three staff in a dingy basement to 11 offices worldwide and more than 200 employees.

Leach has pioneered search marketing and brand protection to make Bigmouthmedia the finest in its field. The company’s unique artificial intelligence can break down the revenue and profit generated from every pound spent on marketing online.

No wonder its client list currently boasts more than 200 household names, including the likes of Tesco, MTV and British Airways, and has grown by more than 1,400 per cent in the past five years. Leach is a blue sky man through and through.

When he’s not working hard, or playing hard, you’ll find this former pilot taking a spin in one of his planes. And the sky’s the limit for Leach as he now prepares for a new challenge: an IPO. “It’s the only bit I haven’t done yet,” he says. No doubt he’ll rise to the challenge.

YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS OF THE YEAR: Dan McGuire and Oliver Bishop

Dan McGuire was only 21 when he launched online ad distribution company Broadbean Technology. Dissatisfied with his cushy job in recruitment and spotting a niche for an intelligent online job posting service, he forwent a salary for over a year to get the company off the ground.

For the first two years, McGuire ran thecompany on his £35,000 overdraft. But by 2004, Broadbean was out of debt, pulling in revenues of £250,000. The company, now in it’s fifth year, is turning over £2m – up 110 per cent on last year.

McGuire reckons his winning formula is mostly down to his staff, or “Beaners” as they’re affectionately known. All 25 employees were personally interviewed by him.
Despite the fact that Broadbean is now the biggest player in the sector in Europe, McGuire hasn’t let success go to his head, passing on his experience by mentoring young people through the Young Enterprise charity.

McGuire’s going to be a very busy bean in the future. He’s planning to roll out the Broadbean business model to the US and Asia next year. But if his track record is anything to go by, we can expect great things.

Oliver Bishop is no stranger to cracking tough online markets. He helped found Espotting, the search marketing firm, which launched as the dotcom bubble burst in 2000.

Despite this, Espotting was hugely successful, with revenues of £29m in 2003.
Hungry for a new challenge, Bishop entered the fiercely competitive world of search marketing, launching Steak Media in 2005.

The company was profitable from day one. Bishop secured credit deals with leading search engines, undercut larger agencies and won substantial contracts without a proven track record. By 2007, British Gas, John Lewis and FCUK were added to Steak Media’s client portfolio and growth was at 392 per cent.

With sales of £14.5m in 2007, Steak Media has made a serious dent in the market. But Bishop isn’t resting on his laurels yet. The ambitious CEO has launched a dedicated mobile marketing division to make sure he’s ahead of the curve with SMS and banner advertising.

There are big plans afoot next year to get into web design, creative and affiliate marketing, a move that will see revenues almost double for 2008.

YOUNG COMPANY OF THE YEAR: Myprotein.co.uk

Oliver Cookson’s decision to ditch his well-paid job in September 2004 to launch myprotein.co.uk has clearly paid off. Sales growth has increased by more than 250 per cent each year since then and the company has never been in the red. Current year turnover is £2.2m and forecast turnover for next year is £5.4m.

The online manufacturer and supplier of sports nutrition products originally intended to offer nutrition powders in raw form and allow customers to create custom formulas. But like all good companies, the product range has diversified and myprotein.co.uk now offers tablet/capsule-based products, health ingredients, a food range and accessories.

The website has also evolved and now features help and advice for customers, industry news and a forum. In January 2007, myprotein.co.uk moved into a much larger factory with plans to take over a neighbouring warehouse. It currently has 14 staff.

The company buys direct from dairies and factories worldwide and makes its products in-house. It promises to beat any price for the same product anywhere in the EU. Low prices do not, however, mean low quality, and the company proves the purity of its product through regular independent laboratory testing. Customers obviously like what they buy; myprotein.co.uk has a customer retention rate of more than 90 per cent.

CUSTOMER EXCELLENCE: Exchange Group

Ethnic minorities; the unemployed; single parents; the over-50s. Exchange Group works with the very people most companies wouldn’t touch – and helps improve their career prospects.

Set up in 2003, this London-based firm has a network of 28 training centres across the country, with courses ranging from basic literacy and numeracy through to IT training. All the courses lead to nationally recognised qualifications.

These centres are open at least six days a week and offer a flexible “drop-in-and-learn” environment. All students are given a customised Individual Learning Plan (ILP), which is based on an initial detailed assessment and their personal aspirations. The training then kicks off, delivered through online courses and a series of one-to-one tutorials.

If a student plays truant or does badly in class, it will be picked up by Exchange Group’s real-time database, which automatically prompts a phone call, generates letters or sends out SMS messages.

There’s no skipping class. If you need convincing that this approach works, just check out the stats: 94 per cent of students complete their course; 73 per cent do more than one course; and 86 per cent pass their exams at their first attempt. No wonder 96.7 per cent of learners said they were satisfied with the quality of the centre.

These efforts are reflected in Exchange’s figures. Turnover for 2006 was £3.7m, up from £3.1m in 2005

TECHNOLOGY IN BUSINESS: Advance Peripheral Systems

Reverse back to January 2005. Advance Peripheral Systems was struggling to stay afloat. Customer satisfaction and profitability at the fire safety products business had hit an all-time low. It was taking three weeks just to issue quotes.

The then-new managing director, Andy Fox, decided it was time to find a new technological solution to improve business flow and operational effectiveness, and restore customer trust. Enter the digital pen.

In July 2006, the company launched a service management system built around the use of digital pen technology. Digital pens capture and store information as it’s written, which meant the company’s engineers could send back data they’d collected in the field. APS used its own internal expertise in service management with the technology from Destiny Wireless.

All of a sudden, APS had the capacity to issue same-day quotes, job status updates, next-day invoicing and sometimes same-day completion of work. Efficiency levels skyrocketed as engineers were able to do their jobs more quickly.

Customers have been suitably impressed, so much so that APS has secured a 25 per cent increase in contracts in the past 12 months. From losses of £350,000 in 2004, the Worcester-based company is now back in the black, expecting profits of £150,000 next year.

INNOVATIVE COMPANY OF THE YEAR: Texperts

Pub quizzes will never be the same again. Not now that Texperts answers any question direct to your mobile in minutes. Texperts was the brainchild of Chinese-speaking motorbike fanatic Sarah McVittie and self-confessed “mobile phone tart” Thomas Roberts, who quit their high-flying City jobs in 2003 to set up the Cambridge-based business.

For £1, anyone in the UK with a mobile can text their question to 66000. These can be as specific as “what’s the best curry house on Brick Lane?” or as random as “will hippies ever truly be free?” If it’s a location that you’re after, an individually tailored map will be sent to your mobile for an extra 50p.

The questions are answered by a team of “texperts” dotted around the globe, the majority of whom are recent graduates and PhD students supplementing their income by answering questions in their spare time. All employees are kitted out with branded polo shorts, mouse pads, coasters and, importantly, a Good Text Guide.

Does it work? The proof of the pudding is in the eating. In a marketplace worth £4.8bn, Texperts’ user base is growing by 20 per cent a month. Investors are impressed. In the past four years, Texperts has raised more than £2.5m and is now valued at £7m. Having shunned a number of takeover offers, McVittie and Roberts are aiming to float the company next year.

INTERNATIONAL COMPANY OF THE YEAR: Randox Laboratories

It produces five per cent of the world’s clinical chemistry products. It sells in 130 countries. And it employs more than 600 people, including 185 research scientists. You’d never guess that this global giant started out in Ireland in the eighties with just three employees.

Randox Laboratories was founded by Dr Peter FitzGerald in 1982 and today turns over £43.7m. Of these sales, only four per cent are in the UK. It received the Queen’s Award for International Trade this year, making it the only Northern Irish company to have received the accolade five times.

But Randox isn’t stopping there. Over the past two years, the company has come up with imaginative ways to tap into new, lucrative markets.

Take China, for example. In a country where the bulk of the population only has access to the most basic healthcare, Randox has developed manual tests that don’t require expensive equipment, it sells near-expiry products at discounted prices and advertises in Mandarin. These tactics are paying off: total revenue from China increased from £2.6m in 2006 to £3.2m in 2007.

The firm now has 24 offices worldwide, staffed by local employees. In countries with lower sales, Randox has set up distributor deals. For the past year, the firm’s strategic marketing team has been charged with the monster task of collecting demographic and market information on 90 countries. The ambition? To become the world’s biggest diagnostics company.

NEW PRODUCT OF THE YEAR: Natural Colour Cotton

We’ve all heard horror stories about the chemicals lurking in our food and water. But what about our clothing? Did you know that as many as 9,000 chemicals can go into producing a cotton t-shirt?

Step in Natural Colour Cotton. This Milton Keynes-based firm is the first and only company to control the entire cotton-manufacturing process, from soil to shop. The cotton is grown in shades of brown, green and beige. And it’s all done naturally. No dyes. No pesticides. No fertilisers. No chlorine.

The company was set up by eco-entrepreneur John Conneely in August 2006, following two years of research and endless trips to India, Mauritius and China. He financed the business personally by remortgaging his house.

The gamble paid off. In just over a year since launch, the company’s “The Perfect Start” babywear range is now distributed in eight different countries. The firm has also hooked up with Disney to create an eco-friendly nursery bedding collection called “Disney Loved by Nature”, which is sold in every John Lewis store across the country.

The idea of “green clothing” has taken root: sales of organic cotton are set to triple over the next two years to £1.3bn. And Natural Colour Cotton is riding
the wave. It expects turnover to grow from £1.2m in 2007 to £3.2m in 2008.

Award Judges for 2007

• Mike Jatania, CEO, Lornamead UK


• Peter Jones, Chairman and Chief Executive, Phones International Group and Dragon


• Sir Christopher Evans, Chairman, Merlin Biosciences


• Ayman Asfari, CEO, Petrofac


• Dr Rebecca Harding, Director GEM UK, London Business School

• Peter Brooks, LDC

• Deborah Meaden, Meadenspeak and Dragon


• Dr David Milne, CEO, Wolfson and GBA Entrepreneur of the Year 2006


• Stephen Hazell-Smith, Chairman, Plus Markets Group

For more information take a look at the Growing Business Awards website.

Tags: