Working Lunch: Jeremy Broadbent
With customers like Vodafone, Orange and BT, Jeremy Broadbent, chairman and part owner of the Medlock Group, is planning to expand. He tells Michael Taylor what his options are
Broad shoulders
With customers like Vodafone, Orange and BT, Jeremy Broadbent, chairman and part owner of the Medlock Group, is planning to expand. He tells Michael Taylor what his options are
Jeremy Broadbent is beginning to discover what it feels like to be a hot property in the business world. Feted by venture capitalists, charmed by lawyers and lunched by journalists, it's the kind of life some aspirants get off on. But it's just another series of people to meet and jobs to get done for one of the chairman of Medlock Group, and one of the region's indigenous entrepreneurs.
It's been a remarkable journey for the Oldham-born surveyor turned businessman, who is propelled by a desire to succeed. Yet he is also bound by strong family ties, which you can't help but conclude, keep his feet on the ground. Not for him is the name dropping and one-upmanship you often get with some businessmen on the move, but more homespun terms of reference. He frequently quotes from members of his own family. He's refreshingly candid, even about his own perceived weaknesses and whether he's cut out for the life of a hard nosed tycoon.
His business, Medlock Group, is essentially a simple one. The firm designs, builds, maintains and services phone masts and communications networks, principally for mobile phone companies. All of them, in fact.
And in case you're wondering, he hasn't any time for the complaints about the safety of phone masts. "I'd have one in my back garden, no problem," he says.
"When my kids ask me what I do, it's quite easy now; I point to a phone mast - and there are enough of them now - and say, I build them. I used to try and explain things like, I organise teams of people," he says.
For that reason, and many others, it's been a blessing that he gave up a promising career as a quantity surveyor with Amec. He says he achieved a great deal while with the construction giant, not least the opportunity to work on the refurbishment of the Midland Hotel in the 1980s. "Oddly enough my grandfather worked on the Midland in the 1920s, when the first refurb took out the old concert hall," he says.
And while the telecommunications business has suffered a fall from a very great height, Medlock has continued to grow steadily, keeping the infrastructure rolling out across the country. As a group, the business employs over 500 people and turns over £375million a year; £315m in construction, while Medlock Communications has revenues of £360m and is making profits of between £33m and £34m.
"If anything our turnover has taken a bit of a dip in the last year, but that's really a short-term blip. We are going for growth," he says.
"We have acquired four businesses over the years, and hopefully we'll more to come. Now is the time to buy," he says. Which is precisely the kind of confidence that seems is in relatively short supply at the moment. Just the sort of talk which will get him lighting up a few other radars too. I put it to him that he's been mentioned in passing by some of the feisty private equity players around the region.
He isn't surprised, but won't elaborate. "I'd rather have a smaller slice of a bigger cake. We have a reasonably sized business but compared to our clients - Vodafone, Orange and BT - we're a minnow. We have to raise our critical mass and become more of a player. We have to get larger. If you're in the middle you have to get bigger quickly," he says.
And with a steady number of clients offering more contracts and more work, the business has always had a healthy cash position, a particular attraction for investors.
"I don't want to sell the business. Our main priority in seeking any extra funds would be to help us develop the business, to grow it organically or through acquisition," he says.
Such ambition is a sign of progress and shows how far Broadbent has built the business since the day he left Amec for Medlock Communications. Then it was just a fledgling part of his father's geometric furniture construction business, turning over £3110,000 a year and rewarding Broadbent the younger with an annual salary of £39,000.
Broadbent first came up on the Insider radar during the steamy summer of 2001. As Asian youths in Oldham torched police vans and racist gangs plotted disorder, Broadbent's firm, Medlock Communications, wondered what to do with plans to open a production facility in Glodwick, the centre of Oldham's summer of hate.
"As we were going through the process of taking the site on, the riots kicked off. Even my mother was phoning me asking me what the hell I was doing. But I never had a moment to regret that.
"Coming from a construction background I've always been aware that certain sectors have moves to get more ethnic minorities working in them," he says.
Broadbent sees things simply. Understand a problem, sort it out, he says. Earlier this year, the Medlock Group, which consisted of several component parts, consolidated, a move that followed the earlier demerger of the construction business.
Broadbent has integrated the Medlock Group businesses; Medlock Communications, UA Comms (and its recent acquisition, Pointercom) and Broadhurst Engineering. A new health, safety and environmental services division, Oakmere, has also been included.
Since Medlock Communications was formed in 1990, it has been involved at virtually every stage of the mobile and cellular phone boom in this country. Milestones include the first mast for the national Orange network in 1991, to creating engineering 'works of art' for BTCellnet.
What's particularly refreshing about Jeremy Broadbent is his honesty. He acknowledges the tough times. "Seven years ago, I had to put my house on the line to get a contract sorted out. That doesn't half focus your mind," he says.
His business also requires flexibility, ramping up activity quickly in some quarters, the scaling down to keep unnecessary costs under control. "Telecoms companies are prudent and they have to be cost conscious. I think we're in for recession, but I think that presents us with opportunities."
A likeable and warm character, Broadbent has considerable wisdom for a man of 40 and a father of three children, the youngest a very recent arrival. He's not the sort of bloke who'd send a secretary out to get someone a present, he'd prefer to do it himself, so I hear. But he still has a ruthless streak, he insists.
"If there's someone holding the business back, you have to move them away. The most important thing is to deliver for your shareholders," he says.
"I've had to make hard decisions, but I've never screwed anyone over. If you back someone into a corner on a deal, there's only one way they can come out and that's fighting. You have to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and know in your heart you've done the right thing.
"There will be people who may think they should feel badly done to, by me. It was difficult to demerge the construction business but it was the right thing to do for the long-term health of that business.
"But I do always try and see the other person's perspective when we're doing a deal. I always ask what they want to achieve. Maybe that's a weakness, seeing the other side, sometimes I wish I could see things as more black and white, but I can't," he says.
It's not a bad recipe for success. Not a bad way to run a company dependent on powerful clients, and a useful skill to have in dealing with shareholders. No wonder he's in demand
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