Episode Description
The Deal Doer’s Deal Doer.
Mike sits down with John Willcox-Jones, founder of Oasis Europe for a chat about all things deal-doing. John has been responsible for literally hundreds of transactions, mainly acting for business owners seeking a successful exit from what is often their life’s work.
About John
John has worked in industry since 1972 holding management positions in sectors as diverse as building products, retail furnishing and horticultural machinery. During the early 1980s he was actively involved in the City advising companies on behalf of several stockbrokers and issuing houses in connection with stock market flotations and on the board of several public companies. He relinquished these appointments in 1984 to specialise in mergers and acquisitions work. He regularly lectures on Corporate Finance matters throughout the UK as well as in Europe and North America.
Contact John- john@oasiseurope.com
Website: www.oasiseurope.com
Points of Interest:
Introduction to John’s story-0:10
How to market to a wider audience-5:47
How to sell your business-11:23
Highs and lows of the process-16:03
Be forthright and straight up with the advice-22:49
The importance of diversity of interest in business-25:34
John’s advice to other investors-37:00
What do you like to do outside of work-44:00
Transcript
Note: This has been automatically transcribed so is likely to have errors! It may however help you navigate the points of interests for you.
Mike: Welcome to the Troubleshooters podcast with me your host Mike McGrath. My guest today is the consummate deal doer. He has been responsible for literally hundreds of transactions, mainly active for business owners seeking a successful exit from what is often their life’s work. I first met John in the mid 90s. He was speaking to an audience of owners about how to get a deal done. I had recently sold out of my first business, John’s insights and approach literally floored me. The proverbial penny dropped. As I realized that I’d done a bad job of selling my own business. John is not only a master deal doer, he is a master troubleshooter who personifies persistence, his own favorite virtue. So sit back and listen as John walks us through his own story.
Mike: So John, welcome to the troubleshooters podcast, hi there. Just to declare an interest you founded oasis in 1984. And you’re based in London, now, and you and I met in the mid 90s. You were speaking in Birmingham, my hometown, not long after that Oasis and you represented my brother and I and I got to see how you did things. And then needless to say, I was impressed. And we were sold. So I think it was some 10 years later, John, actually that I called you from Sydney, and said, What do you think about m&a and oasis in Australia? And the rest is history? Right? We’ve been here for 13 years now.
John Willcox-Jones: That’s right. And certainly, you know, in a way sort of trying to manage the influence of another business on the other side of the globe, I think we’d been a lot more successful than that. George the Third was trying to manage America. So certainly, it’s worked very well. It’s been a great ride. Yeah.
Mike: Yeah, no, it has now Look, John, we got you here today, because we want to talk about your business career. And, you know, you established Oasis, you’re back in 1984. Yeah. And you started out initially in that corporate advisory piece around listing or not listing and then assisting with the, with this private sales if they were appropriate. And so just walk walk us through what was in your mind, what was your vision? And then how long did it take for that to evolve into what, you know what, what you later became very well known ice?
John Willcox-Jones : Yes. So when I started out that time, and I left with a sort of my own special subject, because the market for flotation was actually slowing, I decided I needed to go out with a range of products rather than just the the 111 trick, as it were. So started by going out with a range of sort of services, including raising equity, finance, actually, assisting with acquisitions, assisting with sales of businesses, and also executive recruitment. Because again, that all the people coming in to go public, it’s painfully obvious they had gaps in my senior management teams. And so what I’m really doing that
Mike: You started in business, you got going, you know, the first couple of years, you were figuring things out? What was going to work? What wasn’t going to work a suite of services? When was it that you realize that this is gonna work that you love this? And that you could really make this happen?
John Willcox-Jones: I think it’s, it’s probably almost the first deal you do.
Mike: Is that right? You know,
John Willcox-Jones: this is sort of not your own business. It’s somebody else’s baby. And the idea that you’ve, you’ve taken it, you found the buyer, it negotiated the deal with a guy that bought good business with plenty of prospects, hopefully, and you’re charged on a lot of time developing something, and they’ve been able to pull handle now got that capital evidence of their success, and then to then go on to the next stage of their life. And that’s a really satisfying experience. Yes, we’ve certainly have our clients hidden by any means been ones that have sold and retired, an awful lot of them have been sold and then gone off to the next career. Because they liked the idea of starting something up, they had bright ideas, they liked developing the ideas that are getting it going. But once it becomes to say a business to run rather than build it or so many examples of people that you know, like to have a coat on being the factory and then the moment they had to not be able to do it because they were managing things I miss the hands on contact, yes, doing could be research
Mike: that says sort of entrepreneurial, you know, tech, technical passion sort of projects, isn’t it? I mean, it’s interesting, only less than half the deals we do in Australia are age related or related to retirement, you know, over half have got nothing to do with that, really, they’re just people that decided, they’ve kind of had enough of the business running the way it is, and they want to go and do something else. Or they, it’s often that it’s often got bigger than they ever imagined.
John Willcox-Jones: Yes, and there can be almost, regardless of disregarding the human elements on either side of the transaction, a lot of businesses get to a point where they, they need a bigger business to take them further on. By example, we, you know, we’ve got somebody who’s developed the most amazing product, and they now want to market it in a much wider basis. And they’ll say, Well, you know, if I could have, you know, 50, a sales, but I could really, you know, kill the world with this. And in reality, it isn’t gonna happen, you’re not gonna find 50 Wonderful salesmen quickly. But on the other hand, if you can find an organization that’s got 50 salesmen already selling other related products, then being able to put another little leaflet in their, their bag to go to their clients can happen very quickly, and there’s very dramatic results. So so there are things where just commercially, it should happen to
Mike: tell us when you first figured out, you know, the the way to actually represent a seller and a vendor in a way that doesn’t put his business at risk and, and really meets that the number one concern that we find that owners have, which is, you know, I work out, I might want to sell my business, but I don’t want the world to know what I’m doing because of suppliers and staff and management. When did you figure that out?
John Willcox-Jones: I thought I knew that. Before I started the business, it goes back to my days in the garden machinery this this because, okay, I believe then that what would happen is I phone would ring, and I’d get a call from somebody in London, and they’d say, you know, we’ve got to their lawnmower business to sell. Would you be interested in buying it because you’d make lawn mowers? And, and my answer would always be yes. Oh, absolutely. Fantastic. And, and then they say, Well, you know, what are your plans for your business? Oh, we want to grow it and we organically and by acquisition, I would say, then I’m new, I then tick the boxes on their form. And then how would you pay for it? Well, we’re in a group where we’ve got funds available for this. So I couldn’t I just visualized them ticking the boxes. I passed the test. So then they’d say, right, well, I can send you information memorandum on this, but you have to sign a nondisclosure agreement. So they actually fine send the sign the non disclosure that went back and I said, Well, if you’ve sent it to my home address, because I didn’t want people in the company thinking we were going off looking at all sorts of things to buy until I wanted to tell so aggressive, basically a Saturday morning posted arrive 60 page document on one of my major competitors with information to die for. Obviously, I signed a nondisclosure agreement. But I’ve no problem with that. I didn’t intend to tell anybody about it. But I have the knowledge of what they were doing, who their key people were, what their margins were, what was selling what wasn’t selling. It was fantastic. I thought, what is actually agreed to send me this document, because then I realized, actually, this one happens. This is what people do in the city, they get medals by finding interested parties in their business, oh, we’re doing really well with this. So we’ve we found 70 people, they are you get copy number 70 of an information memorandum. If he can’t, there’s another 69 guys have got this. But that face stands no chance, even if it’s sold, or its competitors will know exactly where it’s weak spots. So it might work for public companies. And this is the problem that the system have been devolved from people that have been trained as accountants and lawyers that we’re used to working with public company audits. And we’re used to doing public company sales. And that was in a public company sale. And I’m even saying what the impact on the staff is when somebody brings up and says, Did you know you’re for sale? So I thought, well, that’s got to be a better way. Yeah. So for the first day in Oasis, we reverse the process we bring. We bring buyers just the same way the others do. But we don’t say we’re selling anything. We basically say we we find out something about them first from our world databases and find a subject of interest so they might be with a public company is just taken out of The lease on 100,000 Square Foot property somewhere on that on an industrial estate. So we bring the chairman Apple chief exec and say we noticed you’ve just taken that. And obviously you’re expanding or moving and re emerges and acquisitions, we’re interested in whether your future plans include any attention to either acquire or sell parts of your business. And then you conversation. And you seed the conversation with questions that are appropriate to the fight with God, but not so that they know there’s anything going on. And then you can report back to your client and say, right, well, actually spoken to ABC mega Corp. And they’re actually saying, there’s two new legs to the business they want to create. And one of them is in your space. So they knew you’re available. You would really fit that. But could we also find out what size they would like to buy? Ideally, how they would like to manage it if they bought in. And so we’ve got virtually we’ve got a shortlisted buyer, it doesn’t even go on the market or even that you exist. And that process in the developed form, is the way we’ve done every sale for 150. Oldham since means that our client decides who is going to know when about any detail of their business or even their availability for sale?
Mike: And John, did you find that, that that sort of practical, no nonsense, so many seems so logical, but But I, it was outside of my orbit, you know, as a young entrepreneur of 28, selling, you know, my first business? You know, my number one concern is that suppliers and the bank and, you know, management staff would find out that we’re silent, effectively, I waited for a knock on the door, and then proceeded to sell to that party. And with not with with, you know, no real idea that how would I go about, you know, tapping a broader market. And it sounds so obvious when you explain it. But, you know, it wasn’t till I met you in that hotel in Birmingham, where you were, you know, talking to me and other entrepreneurs, about selling a business that this sort of penny dropped. For me there are well, that would have been a much better way to go about things. And so I presumed John, that people were responding well, to that approach, were they?
John Willcox-Jones: Yeah. Yes, it wasn’t easy at the start, the reason being, he needed the track record to show that it works. So but especially when you’re starting, you haven’t got the track record, you’ve got belief that you don’t know, proof to show. So I think to start with I would truthful, you know, we did find that it was hard competing against them, the major accountancy firms, corporate finance, we’ll be able to put a team of 10 in the room to say, so we’ve got to know we’ve got three researchers are going to be working on this, and we’ve got two managers, they’re going to work on your partner. And I’ve been, you know, I’ve been an accountant for so many years. idea that, you know, it’s rather like used to say, in computer world that nobody got sacked for buying IBM. Yeah, didn’t matter whether or not you sort of IBM are good.
Mike: It’s interesting. I mean, you’re now talking about that little guy startup syndrome. Okay, how do you get going? How do you get traction? And you know, that it’s not an easy thing to explain. I mean, it’s quite contrarian, when it’s understood properly, but it is nuanced. And, you know, it. I mean, we’ve got quite good at explaining it now. John, I’m assuming here. But it was a challenge early on, it’s hard work going about it correctly. And, and then maintaining the anonymity and, and it slows things down. But it’s a bit like the hare and the tortoise, isn’t it? It’s, there’s just no point, creating a lot of flurry at the beginning. And then having a lot of contact and meetings and getting a lot of information to marketplace. And then it goes nowhere, because nobody’s qualified. Right? You’re farther off slowing up at the beginning, and then actually getting somewhere as you go.
John Willcox-Jones: That’s right. I mean, we have the safety very well there because we, if you want it to, you know, I mean our any client, we could get 100 Interested parties almost very, very quickly if we went the other approach, because you know, you can, people will always want information about what you’re selling. So that the skill is in having the people that get on with people on the phone, as I said at the start of this that, that they can hold the attention of the chief executive and find that from them truthfully, what they want to do with their business. And that helps, you’re not giving them any steer from what you’ve got in your pocket at the time as a client, because they give you the tricks in there, there’s no point in telling you anything else, they’re wasting their own time. And you’re so they tell you genuinely they’re trying to do. So you start with that, whereas people to do it the other way around. Start with what they think you want to hear, which is why I said about my example from the garden machinery. I just knew I answered the questions correctly, I have access to this information memorandum. So I knew what answers they want me to give them. But we don’t allow people to do that. And it also means then that you’re this sort of shortlist you get people that don’t even know you’re selling anything, is a beautifully high critical, high quality shortlist that you can then go back to and almost do it as though it appears on one on one. negotiation. I say that she’s a few months ago, we spoke to you and you said you were looking for this, that or the other, we think we’ve found it. And obviously, we will not need a nondisclosure agreement. But it’ll be non disclosure agreement number one or one. As far as that person concerned, they then obviously moved from potentially might tell somebody else about it, to actually not wanting anybody else to know about it, because they believe they are got an advantage in the process, they feel it’s a one on one location. So that is the best thing is it putting them in their interest to not telling
Mike: yeah, that period, you know, you obviously refined things you you got, you know, you’ve got very good at you literally done 100 of these things, you and the team there. So what taught us a little bit about some of the highs, there some of the kinds of wins that really stick out for you? Because there must be a few?
John Willcox-Jones: I mean, the they’re not necessarily the biggest ones, either. I mean, necessarily in the industry, it seems to be always what people want, although their biggest deal, and how many of those they’re doing and all the rest of it. But in reality, the common feature is we are generally selling the biggest asset of a human being on this planet. That is gender, the general assumption that we have. As such, what happens to it is one thing, because they spent a lifetime quite often building it. Yes, secondly, that the price is a feature. But generally entrepreneurial clients are as concerned that they get the best available as they are and what the actual summer money is actually get above a certain figure. And we always say, Well, how many takeaways can you get on a Friday night? You know, keep happy you. So when you’re looking at the value of your business, who’s giving you everything you want in life and looking after your family, then the extra bet you’ve got to question is question your own mental judgment rather than
Mike: is that when is enough enough, really, and, and and they’re not getting fixed on? It’s kind of an ego thing, if you’re not careful, he gets fixed on a number. And, you know, we’ve seen that a lot. And it if deals fall over. Because of that, you know, sometimes that’s the best deal available. And then a few years later, the same vendors nowhere near that’s the situation they were in and finding it very difficult at that point to exit and unlock the value. And in fact, it turns out that, that you know that that number would, you know would have been perfectly okay. I mean, we I’ve had those conversations, you know,
John Willcox-Jones: yes, yes. It’s the ability said not say I told you. So it’s it’s strange. Because, yeah, yeah, you try and educate clients. I mean, we’re not trying to make it easier for ourselves, we’re trying to effectively reflect reality, and the reality of hundreds of people that have gone before them in terms of competing factions, that it’s also a package, you know, that can be a sum of three, say, competitive offers. But there’s one offer that we would say has greater deliverability i We’re confident that the PLCs decision chain can be coped with, whereas another one, we’re not so sure that we could control it. And also the idea of, you know, what are the people do afterwards, it’s not necessarily good that they run on day one, for their own mental to view because we have a number of clients that have either think they want to do a lot of other things afterwards, and then realized quite quickly and relatively quickly, but actually, they didn’t realize just how much of a kick they got out of being involved in the business. So sometimes it can be where there’s a good role in the future. It’s actually assets continue being involved and it makes for a smoother transaction by often.
Mike: Yes, yes. I mean, so But what you’re saying there is that, that there are, there are lots of elements to a deal outside the price or the gross consideration, which which needs to be factored in is the consummation of a deal is, what might happen after it’s how reliable the buyers will be and how smooth I mean, these are all part of it, aren’t they really,
John Willcox-Jones : that’s the advice that they look to us to give based on the fact that we’ve done it so many times that we actually see situations where the, the price might not be quite as good. bested for theologian, so he sold to a company called Rubicon drinks to come people ag bar to make Iron Brew, which is a Scottish drink, fizzy fizzy drink. And the reason they bought Rubicon was the Rubicon specialized in mango flavored drinks and pomegranate flavored drinks. And it was the ability of ag bar sort of very old, established family run public company, to have another brand to develop, was selling that business and we had competitive offers, which were rate raising rapidly. And I managed to even though Ross childs were the corporate finance advisors to the buyer, I managed to keep my initial conversations that I’ve had with the Chief Exec of at bar, I kept having those direct conversations. So I never effectively let the corporate finance people into my room in terms of here steaming through them. And I was a good example of how I was totally convinced that the chief exec had the correct ears on the board that would actually get this deal through the board meeting. So even though at the end, I’m talking of figures that are well in excess of 50 million pound deal, it will be possible to argue that I threw away one and a half million on that deal, because we offered it was one half million lower than the best one on the table. ability I said no, I’m confident that one will get approved at the board. Not so confident the other one will go through first time in my welcome back and then be lower again. The client took our advice in the knowledge that we’re going to take a lower sum. And and that client has has returned to us with another business now. So
Mike: yeah, yes. I mean, it’s, it’s good to, it’s good to be forthright and straight up with the advice. I think I mean, we’d sold a business is not dissimilar situation where the the vendor decided he would take a lower offer, because he preferred the acquirer, he felt they understood the business fairly, we’re going to look after the people. And you know, there was a sort of private capital private equity party, they were prepared to pay more, but he genuinely thought they were going to cook it up. And he wasn’t, you know, wasn’t that he wasn’t that needy of the half a million dollars, or whatever it was, we actually went back to the buyer at that point. And, and we agreed, he agreed to up his offer by that. But then the vendor gave the vendor gave him finance over three years and fair, they’re still paying that off now because that was, you know, that was our advice was well, let’s see if the let’s see if the buyer what we know the buyer have full up, but let’s see if they’ll you know, if you’re gonna take on some debt. These are these are good people. And you know, they’ve never missed a payment in three years.
John Willcox-Jones: Yeah, that’s the best deals. I mean, that that you’ve you are working together to get the best outcome for everybody. Because in the end, both classes get the Pessac.
Mike: Yeah, yeah. So So John, you you literally done hundreds of deals. And so So what keeps you doing it? What keeps you going? In this game? I know you’ve got yourself your son. James has been working with you now for some time. But what keeps you at it?
John Willcox-Jones : I’ve been very fortunate, and I’ve never worried about what I have to do on a Monday morning. I do enjoy. I suppose I enjoy the thrill of the chase. Summarize the idea that that’s combined with working with different people all the time. So every new client has a different personality and has different needs and wishes and getting to understand that is I find fun. The other thing is I’m I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to I’m really interested in in businesses and companies and what they physically do Um, you know, whether it’s somebody making bottle tops or, or whatever they do, I find it fascinating because I saw a bottle top, I think well, how on earth would you make one of those, but you didn’t get the makes them it’s fantastic. It goes to show you how you make them. So it’s a sort of schoolboys, best things that keeps me fresh, you could argue, you know, both of us, we basically went through the same process every single time. And every single client does it well. But no, because the people change, and that is change that to me an interest in that. And yeah, and then of course, sector knowledge, you start to actually say you become part of the sector, but you, you certainly are seen as a player in the sector and gives you relationships with the guys and the bean companies, which is fascinating, then when you’re talking to people who are actually driving those industries. If you’re interested in business, it’s just that it is a hobby that, so I have no problem getting that interest. It’s
Mike: great. It’s a great point.
John Willcox-Jones :Yes, yeah, no, it’s
Mike: a great point. That diversity of interest, I think, is a key driver, I talked to people who work for us, you know, before they come in about, you need an insatiable appetite. You need to be inquisitive, and you need to be able to, you know, move in and out of sectors, but, but be knowledgeable about what’s going on retain lots of information that’s relevant to what you’re doing. And I think there’s a certain brain I mean, I, I never enjoyed being stuck in a single sector when I only started this 13 years ago. But prior to that I was, you know, running companies and you become a monomaniac. You just do one thing, we’re in one sector, and I was, you know, after a year or two, I, I was itching to go and do something else often. And this really ticks that box for me, John, that diversity of interests, really, if you as you said, if you like business, and you’re intrigued by it, and the free markets, a fascinating place, and it’s, it’s a never ending source of fascination to me, how many different ways people figure out how to make money? Yeah, in a, in a free market. So, so look, just perhaps wrapping up, John, but what’s interesting to me is, you, you talk about the macro situation for a minute, so you had two or three years of Brexit, which, which was very difficult if I remember, John, you and I would talk and and you have, you know, buyers who find it very difficult to price, a business in the UK, because, you know, for two or three years prior to Brexit, no one knew whether you were going to be inside the Europe or outside. And that was a problem, wasn’t it? So how did you manage that? And then, you know, almost immediately, John, when you when you started thinking about putting that behind you, you then go straight into a pandemic? Yes.
John Willcox-Jones: Yeah. I mean, yeah, yes, the last six or seven years actually be quite interesting. I mean, you’re right. The problem is Brexit was that the problem of Brexit was that it was literally, it was on the horizon on its way for a long time, which would win most of your deals across border. The, you know, both sides were worried in the UK would pick companies were worried about what was going to be the impact on them. And then European countries are worried about what if Britain goes out separately, we won’t have a representative in Britain, but we will need to be in Britain to make advantage of it. So they the Europeans wanted to buy in Britain, because of Brexit. On the other hand, they weren’t gonna do it until everybody knew the timing and the impact of it. So the delays were terrible. I mean, you know, we voted to leave in 2016, you know, 678 years ago. But we didn’t leave until the beginning of 2020. And those transition period to the end of 2020. So we didn’t actually get that link to it after that. And as you say, COVID then dives in, in early 2020. And just chaos really, the bizarre thing in the UK now is that, you know, Brexit is still bigger than an issue as it always was, but it’s on the back burner, because having now come out of COVID relatively cleanly now, in the UK, we’ve gone straight into Ukraine business and that, you know, has obviously the effect on cost of living on energy costs and Security and, and everything else is basically, you know, a real, real killer in terms of where are things going economically?
Mike: Yeah, yeah. John, on that point you just to put some context on that. Tell me what you were saying before we went on air, which was, you know about a flat that you’ve got that? Yeah, where you’re across the heating bills?
John Willcox-Jones : Yes, I mean, electricity prices. There’s a government cap on, it’s sort of 34 pence per kilowatt hour. But we have a flat that we let that heated by electric heaters, electric boiler, and the bills on that have gone up from about 130 pounds a month, to 600 pounds a month. You know, to say it’s, it changes the economics of the left. So it’s an understatement, then you just keep going thinking, well, the weather is going to get better soon, we’re not going to need so much power. And then by the time we get to September, we pray that, well, things, you know, hopefully, the fuel prices are starting to come down again, I just don’t know. I mean, it’s Nobody knows, but certainly is a major impact. But the other thing is that there’s no shortage of people wanting to do things, there’s a shortage of people able to do it. So Brexit for us has a lot of people quite, quite sensibly returned to their homelands. At the SEC, either, as a result of Brexit, or as a result of COVID. Now they’ve returned to their other European countries. And of course, it’s left the UK with a huge shortage of basically, labor. And that doesn’t matter doing and we have a lot of restaurants here that don’t open some days really not because there aren’t people wanting to eat, because they can’t get the stuff either cook or serve. And then you’ll go to a restaurant, which you manage to get a booking in on a Friday night, and find it’s half empty. And the reason is, because they can’t have enough staff on their main light to the week to actually cook and serve. So they have to only book after tables. And same with any gardening or building construction work. They just nobody can get labor. And so that is something probably the single biggest thing I think that the government’s trying to address is how do you get people back into the labor force? Because a lot of people took early retirement as well when COVID started, and they’re just not going back to work. People are unwilling to go back to work in offices, again, if a Why should I go and do the travel? So you’ve got a load of these factors, all creating the same problem, which is in orders, how do you so in so many buckets, the labor?
Mike: Yeah, so So John, you’ve been at this now for 3540 years? What what are you doing to manage this city? What have you done to manage this situation, as you know, I mean, as a troubleshooter, really what
John Willcox-Jones : I do, obviously, through our clients, because that’s what our clients is having to take bigger and bigger wage bills, accepting bigger wage bills. And in the transport sector, for example, a bus company has increased drivers basic wages from something like 13 pounds to 18 pounds an hour, overnight. And which to say that’s causing ruptures, fifth sector build understanding, because, you know, that changes the economics of all sorts of transport services in the country, whether the delivering HGVs or supermarkets or bus and coach or whatever. Because there’s such a shortage of drivers. People are moving in that direction, that is to short term doubt just what the impact of that could be. But I think, the macro economic sense, one theory should happen is that people are going to say, hey, I don’t want to be a doctor anymore. I can make more money driving a lorry. And so they’ll move into driving lorries. But that’s the theory. But we’ll see whether or not that does bring people back into the marketplace. retired people think, Wait a minute, I can earn a fortune by doing 20 hours a week. Perhaps that’s Yeah, yeah.
Mike: It’s interesting, John, because we got a similar situation here probably for different reasons, because we haven’t been hit by the same power increases. I mean, that’s, you know, that wage increases 28% I mean, that completely wrecks the p&l, doesn’t it for a while and, and, you know, your ability to pass that on is in question, but we’ve got similar cost of living increases here because of effectively what is effectively full employment. And that’s driving up that’s driving up prices. Now. What people forget, is that we’ve had fairly stagnant wages here for About a decade in real terms. So there is a bit of catch up. But we’ve got in certain sectors, some real changes going on. But what’s interesting me, John is I know you’re still doing deals, you’re able to somehow continue to do transactions, what do you put that down to,
John Willcox-Jones : generally the, at a different level at the major group level in industry, people have been putting away profit for quite a few years and not spending it on acquisitions. And there have been very low interest rates, which in percentage terms, interest rates have gone up a lot, but not enough to make a PLC want to leave the money in the bank. So still better to spend it. So as other things and the other thing is, is a lot of sectors, they aren’t looking 10 years ahead, they’re not looking 10 quarters ahead or a few weeks ahead. So they realize that they’re going to build their businesses in their segments, they need to acquire, it’s a lot quicker to do that than it is to try and grow organically, particularly a sector isn’t growing in gross terms, then the only way we’ve market share is going by somebody else. And they are taking that as a as a shortcut to doing it. And the other thing I will say is that, which is really nice is that an awful lot of privately owned businesses have got fantastic entrepreneurs running them. This is something that feels these don’t tend to possess, because people that go the PLC route, you know, in employment tend to be the ones that wanted the safe bets, they wanted the company car to be changed every three years they wanted, they liked the pension, and they’re really happy with their multiple life insurance they’re getting, you know, in essence, they’re more that style. So these aren’t the guys that actually start to say, right, let’s go and try that new sector over there. And that their bosses don’t want to do it, because they know that their staff aren’t capable of handling that properly. Whereas if you go and buy a well run private company, that’s got a good guy at that time, then you say to him, right? Well, we’ll put the management in and keep going, what you’ve created, we got plenty of that. What we want you to do is to focus on A, B and C is the ways to develop this on a much bigger scale, and you be the one that’s going to drive this and will will supply the management to handle the day to day as you do it. So it’s very attractive to pick PLC. And I think that’s certainly underpinning a number of our current.
Mike: Good. Well, that look that John, that’s good to hear. And I think timing the market helps as well. You’ve been in the market for such a long time now that, you know, certainly people know you and I know you’ve got you guys have got a great reputation. And particularly in certain sectors.
John Willcox-Jones : mentioned earlier, the not having a track record to start with was an issue because we do think very differently. But now, after an initial conversation, our our best move is to basically say, Here’s three references. And talk to me talk to them. And and that tends to do the trick.
Mike: John, I really want to thank you for speaking to me, and you’ve been a great mentor and coach to me now over the last 13 years. I don’t think I would have gone into m&a Without your help. I certainly wouldn’t have stayed in it without your help. That’s for sure. So thanks for that. But just before you go, we normally wrap up by asking you a few quick questions. So who’s been a big influence of you? You’ve been one on me, John, but who’s big been a big influence on you?
John Willcox-Jones : I think probably counts Conrad’s been the biggest influence because because so he gave me the opportunity was that was very young. While I might have had something it looked okay, on paper in terms of what I could do was he gave me the sort of the wings to allow me to do what I wanted to do. And shown. Having done that for a few years, I then became the norm for me. So that sort of set me on the process. I think the other person is a global figure, probably that I always looked up to a guy called Martin Sorrell, who found it definitely DP. The which effectively he bought a business that made shopping trolleys. And he wanted to he was the F finance director at Saatchi and Saatchi the advertising agency for this business, banking shopping trolleys, and he’s going to turn it into a marketing services group. And one of my first transactions was sale to his to WPP didn’t notice that right but he started and and that was a five year deal money front. And I know that over five years, yeah. And although you know, people decry an X and say, Oh, that never worked both in the tub told me Yeah, but reality is right, that first deal he bought, the guys that sold it to them to me, actually was still there 20 years later, they love and they made. They were very happy to stay. But he that to me why he’s such an example is that he, he, he stayed with a business and built it from that point onwards. He was an accountant report for that. But he was an entrepreneurial accountant. And to develop like that a people business where the assets walk out every night, have to come back morning is phenomenal. So to achieve that over such a long period of time with one business is unmatched in the UK.
Mike: Yes, no, I agree. And I wonder how many acquisitions they’ve made. I mean, literally hundreds.
John Willcox-Jones: But, but certainly, you can factor this sort of phrase that diamonds are any lumps of coal that stuck to their jobs. And that’s what he is, you know, he started that business. He was going to build the biggest marketing services group in the world. And he did it. But it was obviously a lot of things happen on the way. But you know, that’s something you can
Mike: And what about your favorite book, if you got a book that
John Willcox-Jones: I’m famous for? Not reading books. In the last three books, you read them? I say, well, it was Macbeth choices, tails, and Don Quixote, and when did you read those? And that was a school. And basically, I mean, the books are sort of fascinate me now something like this book called How Stuff Works. And it’s 1000s of things, just in how does it work? And how does a black hole work? What is a black hole? And it says, No, we get things across life. Things like that. I always go back to, which is I enjoy reading about, it tends to be if it’s not true, I don’t like reading it. I just don’t read fiction. It’s probably the way to summarize. I’m
Mike: totally like that, to my eternal shame. Actually, I’ve never read a fiction book since I left school because I figured out the life was gonna lie for sure. And I couldn’t waste I couldn’t waste my time creating stuff that’s made up which which is to my eternal shame. But anyway, that’s where I’ve come from so and so what about a film? What’s your favorite film?
John Willcox-Jones : Yes, again, not not desperately Hi, brow. This is how to be Top Gun Maverick. Films put together. Yeah. I do love the way that that that’s how script works in it. And I find that just pure relaxing. Entertain.
Mike: Yeah, no, exactly. She can certainly lose yourself in in those films. So favorite place in the world?
John Willcox-Jones: You’re gonna have to close your ears for this one. This is not done for this. Sydney is actually my favorite place. Wow. Yeah. Okay. That’s been the one from the time I left school, it was Sydney in San Francisco. My two ideal places. Yeah. And San Francisco gave way to Sydney some years ago. And the very fact that in Sydney, a that people are into sport, which isn’t always my first start point. And you can work and play in the same city. With the pictures, the port harbors, they’re being on the water. In our office, there’s hundreds of yards in the water.
Mike: Yeah, that’s interesting in London’s a great city too. And I do enjoy going back to London at times. But and I even enjoy going back to Birmingham, but I do like living in Sydney. And I remember when I came here on a bit of a scouting mission, because we were thinking about coming back here and I remember coming to Circular Quay one morning I went for a jog and everyone was arriving on ferries into it and I thought what a great way to come to work and now I come to work on the ferry. So that’s good. So so look. Last Last question. So what are you like doing outside of work? I know what this is, but tell everyone. Yeah.
John Willcox-Jones Yeah, I like anything live. So coming back to sport again. I mean, rugby union,
Mike: isn’t it? It is my
John Willcox-Jones : sort of go to sport. It always has been some changes in the businesses. That is the same thing and he still plays. And cricket is probably the second sport. Okay. Except when we’re playing Australia and the ashes, which is not, not recently a good experience, it
Mike: hasn’t been pleasant for either of us. And particularly for me in Sydney.
John Willcox-Jones: I do enjoy days of the cricket. It’s most forms of the game. I, I, I did stick at the 2020 I don’t like it shorter than that. 2020
Mike: No, no. Okay. So, John, you’ve got to be very persistent in the m&a game. You got to be very persistent in life. So maybe we’ll end with your Calvin Coolidge quote, which you’ve often quoted to me, normally when I’m whinging and moaning about a deal falling over, but you do like that quote about persistence, don’t you?
John Willcox-Jones: Yes, I do. I mean, I don’t know whether you’ve got it in front of you. But it’s it’s certainly uh, you know, I think in life, it can make you feel better. Because you’re, when it’s because it’s showing really that doesn’t matter what your basic skills are, or what you think they aren’t. In reality, there is one skill, which can actually get you to the end regardless, and that is persistence. And
Mike: no, I’ve got it here. Let me just get it out there nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not. Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not. The world is full of educated derelicts, persistence and determination above all are omnipotent. The slogan press on has solved and will always solve the problems of the human race. John will end it there. Thanks a million for joining us. Take care.
John: Thanks, it was great fun.
Mike: Well, I hope you enjoy John’s reflections on his career as much as I did. Well, so I’ve known John for quite a while and worked with him. Albeit he works in London and I work in Sydney. This conversation gave me a fresh perspective into what has made him into a world class deal. Quick shout out to our sponsors, Oasis, corporate advice, without all the waffle and the jargon from people who take the time to understand your situation. We’ve been doing deals since 1984. And I’ve got good at leveling the playing field, especially for vendors. So jump on the website, or talk to one of our partners at Oasis. Don’t do what I did and represent yourself. Yes, I’m talking to you, Mr. Independent. I know best business owner. To quote John Wilcox Jones, when was the last time you did something for the first time? Well, that’s what you’re doing when you sell your company on your own. So let’s at least have a chat. Finally, if you like this sort of content, be sure to tell your friends and colleagues. leaving a like or review will be also be very nice. Only good ones, please because we’re very sensitive. So until next time, stay safe.
Link to previous episodes: https://www.oasispartners.com.au/troubleshooters-podcast/