Upstream The Newsletter of Incentive FM Group Spring April 2019 Inside This Issue Our Growth Strategy Group Contract Wins Charity Shoot Consultancy Update Fit Out News Our Conference Health & Safety Welcome to the April Landsec has Landed... 2019 edition of our newsletter, Upstream. We hope you enjoy We are delighted to confirm that following an ini- genuine partnership approach with the Landsec reading about what has tial three year term, Incentive Facilities teams. been happening in and Management has been successful in renewing its Robert Goodman, Senior General Manager around our business in largest contracts, the extremely prestigious at Bluewater, said: “Incentive FM has thoroughly the last 6 months. Bluewater Total Facilities Management contract impressed us with its ability to consistently deliver for a further five years. an exceptional level of service throughout our Further good news was confirmed with the relationship. Their commitment, expertise and award of another substantial contract from Land ability to adapt to meet our needs, providing a Securities, this time a five-year Total Facilities value driven service, combined with their dedica- Management contract for the Landsec designer tion to staff welfare, made them the perfect com- outlet portfolio of shopping centres. pany to continue to deliver services at We are extremely proud of these two record Bluewater.” breaking achievements for our group which will Bruce McDonnell, Managing Director at be delivering the full range of TFM services across Incentive FM, said: “Having provided dedicated the portfolio. services at Bluewater for the last 3 years, we com- Since the start of the strategic partnership pletely understand the infrastructure in place and with Bluewater, Incentive FM has consistently what is required to provide a range of world-class adapted its services to fulfil the needs of the cen- services that deliver the perfect guest experience. tre. This has included providing innovative solu- We are extremely proud of our achievements at tions, continuous improvement and added value Bluewater and we look forward to continuing to by engaging with, and supporting, the develop- develop this relationship for many successful ment of the skill set of the 300-strong facilities years to come.” staff team that works on site. We contend that The addition of these locations takes us to Bluewater is the largest single site genuine TFM almost 3.5m sq. ft of retail space with Landsec. contract in the private sector within the UK. The Incentive FM now delivers services across 13m sq. existing Bluewater team working for Incentive ft of retail space across its wider portfolio, includ- FM will now be joined by a further 244 team ing three of the top 20 schemes in the UK with a members across the outlet portfolio which con- staggering annual footfall of well over 300 mil- sists of; Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth, Clarks lion visitors per year. Village in Street, Hatfield Galleria, Freeport Braintree and J32 at Castleford. The strategy is to deliver incredible experi- ences for the guests across the portfolio with a real focus on staff engagement coupled with a fm group limited ‘Our Growth Strategy’ What have we done, what have we By Jeremy Waud and Martin Reed We find it useful to reflect on raise money from our bank for this acquisi- tion and Steve Wright became our first new the past within our business shareholder as we struck a cash, deferred as a means of informing the consideration and equity deal with him. Much water has passed under the bridge future – in other words, what since then, and after an unspectacular start, did we do well, what could and in the past three years under the stew- have gone better and what ardship of Jamie Wright (Steve’s son), the business is flourishing and now has annual are we going to do differently sales of over £20m. This we can now con- going forwards? sider to be a good acquisition – but how have the others faired? Naturally the directors and shareholders of Incentive FM Group are very proud of our Security achievements over the last seventeen years Our next big buy was Lynx Security In 2012, in building our £125m turnover business a company with sales at the time of nearly and assembling a combined team of over £12m and a strong footprint in the central 3,000 people. In fairness it has been any- London manned guarding business. Our thing but plain sailing and of course we bankers were slightly nervous about the have made mistakes and taken wrong turns exposure to one major account across mul- along the journey – nothing surprising in tiple high-profile buildings. We believed that we hear you say. and were assured by the sellers of the busi- As is well documented, our journey ness that each contract was on a stand- begun in 2002 as a facilities management alone basis and that this isn’t a real issue. new start up business with seven staff and History has dictated that too much business no clients; all very exciting but also quite wor- with one client is unhealthy and so it proved rying as we had little funding at the time. The to be with that client. They had a limited early years were referenced by gradual and supplier list who were bidding for each entrepreneurial growth with some very inter- other’s work and each time they retendered esting clients who bought into our vision, a building it was won at lower and lower can do attitude and our service ethos. margins. The merry go round of tendering was enough to make you dizzy. Many years Jeremy Waud, Group Chairman Office Cleaning later and with a very different management By 2009 we were ready to make our first team under the leadership of Stephen ness to Savills, who have subsequently acquisition, that of Quality Assured Services Waud, we are rebuilding a business that become an important client to us. So, (QAS), a £6m sales contract cleaning busi- had been dwindling and our client base grounds for optimism but lessons learnt on ness that was focussed on London and the looks somewhat different. Our significant this journey which has yet to reach its set south east of England. We were not able to major client has sold its management busi- objectives after six years. Business Milestones First £2m+ Account (EMAP) Covent Garden Awarded (£3.2m) Awarded Landsec Outlets (£9.0m) Key accounts won (£ Revenues) Awarded Kent & Essex Police (£2.5m) Awarded Cribbs & Arndale (£7.5m) Acquisitions made (£ Revenues) Dollar Finance Awarded (£7.5m) Bluewater Awarded (£13m) First Operational Account (NBS) First £1m+ Account (Pall) Equiniti Awarded (£4.3m) 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 Incentive FM Formed Dec 2001 Incentive FM Group Formed Acquired Lynx (£11.7m) Acquired QAS (£5.6m) Acquired Comserve (£3m) Acquired SWC (£0.6m) Acquired ACE (£6m) Incentive FM Group – Timeline Acquired ARL (£2.4m) £100m Run Rate Acquired WES (£10m) Page 2 learnt and what are we doing now? Incentive FM Group – Brand Architecture Mechanical & Electrical Services (M&E) balanced and controlled operating platform This is an area we have long been involved and disciplines. Under the combined brand with through our facilities management of Incentive Tec and the leadership of Chris contracts and we considered it to be a logi- Windass, we have high hopes for this busi- cal bolt on to our service range for our ness across the UK. clients. Our M&A advisors were tasked with finding appropriate niche players in this Is the Jigsaw Complete? market for us to acquire and thus offer this Yes! (for now). The overall structure of the range of technical services around the group offering is where we want it for now country to our varied client base. First on and the short-term objective is to deliver our list was Comserve in 2015, a our services and projects in ways that can Hertfordshire based business with a nice be discerned as better, smarter and differ- culture and operating in the London area ent. In terms of shareholder value and mainly in mechanical maintenance with achieving appropriate returns, we need to Martin Reed, Chief Executive associated project works and repairs. This achieve the rather tricky challenge of get- deal was followed a year later with Ace ting all our businesses to fire at once – it Window Cleaning Environmental Engineering in Derby – an sounds easy enough but in fairness it’s not. Our Window Cleaning additions to the Air Conditioning design, installation and portfolio came in the form of Specialist maintenance company. Lessons Learnt Window Cleaning Ltd (SWC) in 2015 fol- The final M&E piece to our jigsaw came Effective corporate acquisitions, we have lowed by the nationwide retail window in the form of Western Electrical Services, a learnt, are more of an artform than a sci- cleaning business of ARL a year later. SWC project and electrical maintenance business ence… if you have your time again you was a known entity as a current supplier to based in Weston-Super-Mare near Bristol would probably handle each one differently, Incentive FM and the addition to our group that we acquired in 2017. even acknowledging that each party enters of Gareth and Chris Thomas has been a The complexities of these three techni- the deal with a positive attitude and the really good one. cal businesses, paired with alien cultures, right intentions in mind. Sadly, a mixture of The ARL acquisition is one that was far three different leadership teams and three previous owners, customers, the bank and more traumatic, as this business had been different accounts systems was one of the the markets they operate in have a habit of run on a rather shambolic basis and obtain- greatest challenges that we have yet experi- making the exercise more complicated and ing facts and figures in the early days was enced.