"We’ve been shifted up the food chain" says Adare chief executive following merger
ADARE chief executive Robert Whiteside isn’t afraid of growth, if the merger with Banner announced yesterday is anything to go by, and he has even bigger things planned for the group.
“The next few years will be accruing and integrating and growing,” he said, following the creation of a £230m-turnover group with the merger of two Endless-owned companies.
Adare is set to continue on its acquisition trail. “I’m greedy with my wish lists,” said Mr Whiteside, “We’ve ticked the box in creating a bigger company that shifts us right up the value in the food chain.
“But what I can tell you is that this is not the end of Adare’s acquisition story, it is the start of it. We are actively looking for other companies, in the UK and the wider world.”
Mr Whiteside said that for Adare SEC, additional transactional mail and document management businesses were being looked at, and for Adare International, a digital creative agency would be the perfect fit.
He said: “The whole thrust of acquisition was about taking two well-managed, profitable, cash generating businesses with complementary services, and bringing them together.
“We can then harness these services to offer offering more holistic solutions for clients. With a bigger range, we have a better proposition for clients and want to continue that with further acquisitions.”
But, as Mr Whiteside said: “Deals don’t happen overnight. We stated from the outset when we did the deal with Endless, in which they became a majority stakeholder in the business, that an acquisition like this wouldn’t be an arranged marriage.
“It was an acquisition we wanted to do, and we’re grateful for the opportunity and benefits it brings.”
Over the past six months, said Mr Whiteside, the idea had been floated with Banner – “and one thing led to another,” he said.
“The biggest change is that last Wednesday there were two companies in the Adare group, Adare CES and Adare International. This week, there are three children in the family.”
Mr Whiteside plans to run it “for a period of time” as three companies, with three people reporting to him including Catherine Burke, chief executive of Banner.
The plan is then to split the activities within Banner before integrating the business into SEC in Yorkshire, with the aim of getting back to two companies in the group.
“Over weeks and months, Banner will disappear as a brand. The vast majority of people will be accommodated as we transition,” he said, but did acknowledge that there may possibly be redundancies in future.
“We’re a bigger organisation looking for growth, we’re not looking to reduce number of people – we’re looking to increase sales volumes.
“We’re combining with the aim of getting more business, which means more jobs, but I can’t say categorically there won’t be redundancies. The drivers was not for cost saving, but to create a much bigger platform and springboard for future growth.”
Mr Whiteside said that although this deal was done, Adare has a “long journey” ahead of it with Endless. To top off a transformative year for the business, the Adare team won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise and are due at Buckingham Palace in the coming weeks to collect their prestigious award.
