Episode 21: I got my mojo back in my 50s

0:01Chris Maguire:Welcome to the Dealmaker Uncut podcast where we speak to some of the UK's most exciting entrepreneurs and hear their investment journeys. We'll discuss the challenges, successes and lessons they've learned along the way with expert deals commentary from Jonathan Boyers, Head of Averis and Marcel Corporate Finance and me, Chris Maguire, Executive Editor at Business Cloud.

0:25Chris Maguire:Welcome everyone to the latest episode of the Dealmaker Uncut podcast powered by Alvarez and Marcel. My name is Chris McGuire and I'm the Executive Editor of Business Cloud. As always, I'm joined by the multiple award-winning dealmaker himself, Jonathan Boyers. Jonathan's been involved in deals totaling billions of pounds during his long and illustrious career and he's a Managing Director and the Head of Alvarez and Marcel's Corporate Finance Practice in the UK. Welcome, Jonathan. Thanks, Chris. Great to be here. Now, this podcast gets you inside the deal. In the first part of the show, we're going to be interviewing our special guest.

0:57Chris Maguire:After that, we'll then have a short break. And in part two, Jonathan will be leaning on his 35 plus years of working in corporate finance to answer listener questions. So, Jonathan, who are we speaking to today? Thanks, Chris. Well, today we're talking to somebody who's been a friend of mine for many years, John Hughes. Like me, John spent most of his career working at KPMG before leaving in 2016 after 29 years. Now, since then, he's gone from strength to strength. He's worked as chairman, non-exec director, advisor, interim CEO, and probably a number of other roles as well. One of the companies he's been involved in, Modern Milkman, recently announced a£10 million fundraise.

1:43John's currently the chairman of Cortis Advisory Group, which is another business that's doing really well. And we'll find out more about what John's been up to. So, hi, John. Great to have you. Well, thank you both. It's great to be here. A little bit nervous, but it's great.

2:00Chris Maguire:Sounds a bit like this is your life, doesn't it, John? And actually, since we wrote the script and we spoke, you've joined Sewena, which is a recruitment platform as well. So you really are a busy bee. John, during your 29 years at KPMG, you were head of private equity and spent 25 years in M &A advising as well. Just give our listeners and our viewers a brief summary of your KPMG career. Wow. How long have you got? Yeah, traditional paths going from audits. In those days, they sent us around different places, including tax and pensions, believe it or not. And then I landed into what they call transformational consulting today.

2:36and then I did various things which I'm very proud of and humbled. It was a cornerstone of setting up what is today's KPMG Global Transaction Services which was really good. That took me around the world. It enabled me to join the Global Board for Learning and Development and they threw in a couple of secondments, one in Australia which was fantastic. You were one of the first full-time due diligence people there, weren't you? Absolutely. When I first started, I actually worked and reported into a corporate finance partner as myself and me, and that was it, and started writing engagement letters from scratch and then became the first partner.

3:19Chris Maguire:So at KPMG, your clients included the likes of Shop Direct, Findle and Eddie Stobart. When you left in 2016, you were the obvious choice to become group chairman of the loss-making delivery giant, Yodel. So what was the situation that you found yourself in at Yodel, and what was the brief? because it was in a sticky situation, wasn't it? Yeah, without wishing to name-drop, I got a call from Aidan Barclay asking me to come in and be as chairman and to mentor the CO, which was fantastic in that respect. What I found was horrendous. You know, it was almost nothing worked and probably anyone listening in on this podcast would probably upset most of them in terms of a failed delivery.

4:04but it needed a full transformation, it needed a brand resetting, it needed new people brought in. But fundamentally it needed the integrity to be brought back into it.

4:18Chris Maguire:You were the chairman, but some people see that as a bit of a ceremonial role, but you actually decamped yourself down to Hatfield in Hertfordshire. I worked Monday to Friday in Hatfield in various hotels with support and blessing of my partner, Louise. and you get through it, but it was an executive chairman, and for a period, I can't remember what it was, about six months I was actually CEO as well. It must have been quite a change from being an advisor. You know, it was, Jonathan. You know, we go through these sort of, you hear these clichés now and again, you know, it's lonely. Well, it was, it was scary, you know, by yourself, who to trust, who not to trust.

4:58Okay, and so once, I'm not sure if you'd finished at Yodel, You became a non-exec director and the interim finance director at Revive Global. Do you want to talk about that for a little while? Yeah, that was an interesting one. Again, another purposeful business run by an incredibly charismatic powerhouse, Sarah Lomas, with a personal desire to bring preventative, personalised health to a lot more people, which was fantastic. That was involved in sitting on the board, helping raise finance, bringing new people on um yeah it was interesting left few years left a few years ago now but yeah okay and so you've been involved in a in a with a couple of other well several businesses actually that have been all involved in sort of early stage fundraising um you're currently the acting ceo of a company called steamer co um and um but you're also in the chairman of qualtex which I think was Qualtex Global where you were involved in a fundraise there and so I think it would be useful if you could just talk a little bit about the fundraising environment for these types of businesses I think if I start with the end in mind then I think what I've learned and I've had to learn a lot is make sure you go with funders you can trust and who are supportive so at Steamer Co we have Dave Foreman who's gone through the recently hugely successful merger so having someone like Dave supporting you is fantastic or even people like Mercia Stephen at Mercia you know it's sort of because when the chips are down you need those type of investors behind you and I think the other thing is to take the journey on you you know make sure you've got the support at home the support in the office because it's hideous it's difficult and you've got lots of responsibility, you've got lots of jobs to look after and it's emotionally straining.

7:06It's very difficult.

7:08Chris Maguire:You know when companies go belly up and they run into trouble over investment, is it because they chose the wrong investor at the beginning? And when you go into a business and, no disrespect, you've got a few grey hairs, you've been there, you've got the CV and you're advising them and they get offers from different investors. Do you have to sometimes say to the founder, say, that's the wrong person for us, because if it goes wrong, we're going to run into a problem in two, three years' time. Is that sort of what your role is as well? Yeah, a lot of my roles in the, let's call it the technology space in the early stage stuff, has been making sure the right team and founders work together.

7:46And if you've got founders that don't get on, for example, Discreamin, that becomes hard yard, but you have to make some very difficult decisions. I was going to ask you to describe what you thought the most important characteristics were for a sort of chairman, non-exec for businesses like this. What do you think are the most important things to bring to those? I think the most important thing, and I say when I'm talking just recently, going through what does that really mean and what's the red lines. as a chairman you are there for the responsibility for the company so beyond the investors beyond the people it is that company it's and there's those are lines you can't cross and a lot of people just forget it yeah because often if there's a p house appoints a chairman people perceive that they might be on the p houses side or sometimes management want them to be on their side and it's not about size it's absolutely the company full stop

8:50Chris Maguire:Can you just explain the way that process works so I mean in football transfer window you have agents and they act on behalf of players and they try and negotiate deals for their players so when you are you've got an impressive portfolio and you've got different non-exec directors and chairmanships etc etc how does that process work how would you be how would you be appointed a chairman of a company um you know would it be a you know is it like a nod nod wink wink or do you go through a process is it advertised i think a lot of our listeners a lot of our viewers this will be completely new to them john um well for some strange reason i've never really had to apply for anything as such i've just been recommended which is fantastic to the people who have given me that chance.

9:41But you do go through a proper process, you go through, you meet people, you know, invariably I will want to meet all the board, all the other board members, I will speak to the investors, they'll do their diligence on me and I'll go through a rigorous process. And, you know, if that doesn't happen it would worry me because I want to be the right person for the job and I want someone else to assess that position as well.

10:04Chris Maguire:Would you turn down? Yeah, I'm going to ask about Modern Milkman. I do turn down rules, yes. So shall we talk about Modern Milkman? Because that is a really interesting company. It's just secured a£10 million investment from Salica Investments, which means I think it's raised in total about£60 million. It's got quite a diverse shareholder base. And it's growing from its roots in basically delivering milk to becoming a sort of grocery, a wider international grocery delivery business, isn't it? Would you talk about that business for a little while? Yeah, there's real irony here. So just go back to KPMG for a moment.

10:46One of my big transformation consulting projects was working on the demise of the doorstep delivery and working with the milk marketing board and all those good things. And here I am today, you know, supporting Simon Mellon whose father was a milkman and it's going back to sustainable milk milk deliveries but trying to do it in with technology trying to do it in a sustainable way and fundamentally trying to reorganize a doorstep now let me just dwell on this what's that really mean and the owner doorstep most courier businesses which I've worked in and which is you'll see around today the person dropping the parcel off or whatever has one aim in life and that's to get rid of get get out of there as soon as possible within two minutes and no one's really taken time sort of to you know look at what what else could be done at the doorstep you know speak to people build relationships you know modern milkman now is recycling we're taking stuff back when we go and do the pickup so it's a really exciting business led by an incredibly entrepreneurial

11:59Chris Maguire:chap it's a great business one of the interesting things about Simon Mellon you just mentioned of course is that have you ever interviewed Simon I've not interviewed him I know him okay okay because I mean he is not your typical he doesn't sound like your typical entrepreneur does he's got broad east Lancashire action he's gone out to the US and he's been out there with his family for about 18 months he posts pictures on instagram under about 50 foot of snow he's got a cauliflower ear because he likes martial arts he's got tattoos down his arms but what he is is he's just a really passionate purpose-driven entrepreneur he's got a real idea how he wants to change the world and that's so refreshing isn't it and he's a nice guy yeah and he's honest he's got integrity he's humble he's got all those qualities you know and he has and he's fun as well you know definitely fun yeah Not everything you touch turns to gold.

12:48Can we talk for a minute about your role as chairman of Zedify, which was one of the UK's largest electric freight bike delivery networks, and I think that went into administration. If you're dealing with early-stage businesses, this happens now and again, but what went wrong? Yeah, that was heartbreaking. You know, if you ever have a company that doesn't work and you have to let people go and the impact on livelihoods, families, their jobs, how they feel is just hideous. Why did it go wrong? You know, ultimately financial institutions strategically have a look at where they're going themselves.

13:32And certainly for one of the financial institutions at the time, they decided that sustainable deliveries wasn't for them anymore. and I probably jinxed it as well because I can remember going home to my wife mid-November 2024 and said that's it, that's it, we're done now I've signed two contracts with GXO and I've had a blessing from GXO board that's it, it's sorted we're there, all we need now is to deliver on our promises and two weeks later I got told that the second round of funding wasn't going to happen

14:10Chris Maguire:from a personal point of view John as somebody who's had a lot of success in your life and I'd like Jonathan's take on this as well is that you talked about sometimes it'd be a really lonely place people look to you for answers and you can see the walls closing in on you I mean as somebody who's had success in your life I mean do you struggle to sleep you know do you you know do you have to be somebody who rises above that and show direction to the board you know what's that process like for you what's the experience like and I'll ask Jonathan's take on it as well is that they just didn't get the funding they needed and without the funding they couldn't survive is that is that something you see a lot but what would your answer be first John?

14:48Well to that sort of question really was you know emotionally yeah it really hurts but you you try and guard those emotions and you try and maybe yeah sometimes I don't sleep you know because I take it very personally my wife would say I take it too personally but it is important and there is that emotional side of it but you have to leave the emotional side when you get back in the saddle the next morning and try and encourage people and motivate them to you know you go right to the end you push yourselves right to the end but there's a key theme here I'm lucky enough I've worked with some really really good people in it and you know to help you through it to help you through your legal duties and i was thinking you know what really makes one of those people like i don't will jones at hill dicks or whatever locally or john noon even at our vessel you know they don't just give you the content advice they help you on the emotional journey when you're having to deal with very very complex personal things as well it's that the advice from them is incredible

15:53Chris Maguire:I mean Jonathan the media often reports on the good stuff doesn't it but but not everything works one of the most important ingredients for somebody certainly in professional services and probably in wider business is resilience as a characteristic um you know things things don't always go well occasionally we we all everybody we all get told when we're not wanted to continue in our role or Or it's time to do something that you didn't necessarily want to. Maybe it's time to retire when you weren't ready. And you need to pick yourself up and refocus and dust yourself down and start again. But from major things that happen to you, sometimes family matters.

16:43Some relationships might fall away. People might pass away. There's all sorts of things that can happen. Really important to have resilience. And also, every time something bad happens, you're never really sure whether it was completely bad. Sometimes there's positive consequences arise from things that seem to be bad. If you think that if you lose your job, that can be a catalyst for setting up a new business or doing something that you wouldn't have done if that hadn't happened. and the opportunities to learn from difficult things that happen provide a new string to your bow an ability to counsel people or learn for next time so actually you've got to sort of resilience but embrace some of these things and learn from them and make the most of them

17:35Chris Maguire:it's the key word for me, resilience resilience, persistence, consistency three words but certainly resilience would be the first one I'm very mindful we've got Jonathan and John on the call so John, I want to talk a little bit about your life actually because when you left KPMG I would imagine your life was sort of you had an idea of what it was going to look like and then you got married again and you became a dad again you've got two grown up daughters who you idolise and then you've now got a third daughter, Harriet who's eight years of age every time I look at a news website you've taken on a new advisory role as well you seem to have got a completely new lease of life can I just say for the benefit of our listeners John looks about 42 that's very kind sorry I put my glasses back on now John he doesn't yeah but that new lease of life as well I mean you seem to have and actually there's a sort of synergy in a sense with Jonathan to my left not because he's had a child relatively late in life but just in a sense that he's got a new lease of life His child is Alvarez and Marcel.

18:41Chris Maguire:But just from your perspective, you seem to be busier and happier than ever. Yeah, I think on the left, let's call it my first chapter in my first career, I think I had visions of going fishing or playing golf and doing something slightly different, really. Anyway, but that didn't happen. But it's coming back to what Jonathan said before, really, how that change or catalyst propels you in a different way. So I met my new wife, Louise, who's a bedrock. And that's the resilience. That's the bit that gets me through. And like you said, I'm blessed. I'm blessed with three wonderful daughters. I've got two older ones, Becky and Hannah, that absolutely tell me what life is like and what you should say and what you don't say these days and everything else like that.

19:32And then I've got a little daughter called Harriet, who's eight years old. and she brings up the curiosity and everything else you'd expect of a young child.

19:43Chris Maguire:I can actually, I'm looking at my phone now because I can actually reveal for the benefit of our growing audience that John's just mentioned about what to say and what not to say and he gets advice from his Gen Z children. So I said to John, looking forward to seeing you tomorrow, probably going to ask a few questions about this, that and the other. he sends it back all sweet is that what they can say yeah that's that's what that's what they say i thought that woman would make you smile we've got one more business to talk about before we finish you're the chairman of cortis advisory group as well um where you've been reunited with uh with the ceo there nicola merit who we both know well as well um cortis is doing well as Do you want to talk about your role there?

20:29Yeah, Cortis. You know, again, you feel blessed, don't you? Well, I certainly feel blessed that I've got an opportunity to work with Nicky again. You know, how we've developed it when, you know, we're going for over 63 people now, six offices, five different disciplines and international alliances starting. Not the size of our resume, ourselves, but, you know, we're taking baby steps. and working with Nikki, who's tremendous, she holds up that sort of thing to me, which is her integrity. She's a highly entrepreneur, an incredible CEO now. Yeah, she's wonderful. I'm sure you're having lots of fun.

21:19So we worked together for quite a long time over the years, didn't we? Who'd have thought when we were in our late 20s that we'd have been having a podcast sharing our experience all these years later? What do you think has changed over that time? And what do you think has stayed the same in the deal-making world? I think, let's make it a positive statement, I think what I certainly see is there's so many good advisors out there, and not beyond their content and the advice they give, but how they give it, the integrity. I think those standards for me, certainly the people I work with, like yourselves indeed, that's still there and that's still critical.

22:08You've got the advent now of technology in its various forms and machine learning and the ability to get things done, which is great. The thing I really struggle with in the deal world is that there's so many meetings that are held virtually and people don't tend to go out and seem to visit factories anymore and do those type of things. And I struggle with that bit of it because, you know, it's how can you get a good deal done and get that sense of behaviours and get that sense of culture when you're really doing it from an office or at home. I do struggle with that.

22:46Chris Maguire:You've spoken about this, Jonathan, about when you did deals originally, you know you'd have like throw a late nighter you know you'd shake hands you might have a drink afterwards you know in the days when you'd have a drink and now so much of these deals are concluded over zoom yeah i mean the world's different now um i could say the point i was making it's a bit of an anticlimax when the deal happens in the best of times after a load of work but when it's just done on the phone and you just sign you're not even sure you've signed it properly and did your witness witness it? It's just a different environment.

23:22But technology is making deals more efficient to run. But it's still a really tough environment, the deal-doing market. It's tough working in corporate finance.

23:34Chris Maguire:We've got a question about technology to come after the break, but just one more question, John, before we go into the break. You've worked with multiple award-winning dealmakers, Jonathan Boyes, for a number of years, and now you're working with another award-winning dealmaker in Nickel America you mentioned earlier, also a business cloud northern leader as well. What makes them exceptional in their field? Because you'll work with lots of advisors, but what makes them exceptional and above the others? Well, both have got the highest, highest degree of integrity.

24:08They're both a bit cheeky. Both a bit like to break the rules, which is good because they like to push the boundaries. both of them look after their teams. The huge respect I've got for both Nicky and Jonathan in terms of looking after his people is absolutely second to none. I think for Jonathan, there's definitely something I can remember from 20 or 30 years ago which stood out to me with Jonathan, which was Jonathan would always give the right price, and even if he lost a mandate, which wasn't that often, and he would go in on what the value was and his valuation might not be as high as the next person to the other advisor but it was always his honesty that impressed me with him.

24:55Chris Maguire:It's funny you mentioned Nicola Merritt there. I interviewed her on a round table as part of International Women's Day and she was telling a story about how they'd offered a job to a partner, a female partner and then she phoned up two weeks later and she said, look Nicola I'm gonna have to withdraw well she said why is that then because I found out I'm pregnant and it's not fair on you and she said worst effect of to hell it's not you you are we wanted you before we want you now more than ever so you know that's not an issue and it actually sometimes it needs female role models to actually say what's acceptable and what's not and that was that's when you talk about integrity looking after your staff um you've touched on it earlier as well Jonathan in terms of there aren't many female dealmakers out there you know and that's why somebody like Nicola and and other people it's so important no I think Nicola's done a remarkable job at Curtis she's done really well and full of admiration for what they're what they're building okay just time for a quick break when we come back Jonathan and I will be discussing our interview with John and answering your listener questions welcome back to the second half of the dealmaker uncut podcast we've just interviewed john hughes chairman of cortis advisory group what do you think jonathan well john's very very experienced chairman uh non-exec he's um you know he's seen nearly as many deals as i i have in his career um but then it's really interesting to hear how um how he's developed his non-executive roles and some of the things he thought about about the various different experiences the modern milkman cortis and then going through like the insolvency as well so just um really interesting to hear his perspective on lots of different um different businesses yeah what i liked about um john was the fact that he's worked in this industry for 40 plus years he's definitely got a young mindset as well and he's willing and desperate to learn new stuff as well sometimes you speak to people and they'll say they'll almost hark back to back when they were doing x y and z you know the boars and he's not that person as well i mean having a you know having an eight-year-old daughter certainly keeps him on his toes as well he's just it's just um you've got another role with uh swenna um i thought the stuff that he did and he spoke about with yodel as well was really interesting it's a name that a lot of companies a lot of people will be aware of as well um but not everything that he's been involved in has been a success and that's true of life zfi for example went into administration as well and i think he talks about the fact that when he goes through stuff like that that sort of keeps him awake at night as well so yeah really genuinely a nice guy um john and i think i think hopefully that came across in the interview this next section is called ask jonathan is when listeners can ask jonathan any question they want we did a special episode in november after rachel reeves autumn budget which ties into this question did rachel reeves's budget settle the nerves of the market and moving on into 2026 which we are well into has that continued yeah so we we've seen obviously over over the last few years how um bad decision making by um by the chancellor or by the government um can can affect the markets um obviously the list trust's um budget was was a classic example um i think at the moment stock markets are riding pretty high in the uk and particularly in the US.

28:20So in terms of it certainly didn't cause the level of disruption that it might have done. Did it actually settle down the market so that everything's now okay? I think the government's under the caution quite a few fronts. And some of the decisions made by the Labour government around national insurance and such like, some of the tax decisions they've made, are still feeding through and not really helping. I think the market generally is okay. I think, as I've said before, I think that the M &A market is picking up slowly. I think there's lots of political shocks all over the place. But I think the UK has still got huge amounts of borrowing and there's still a heavy amount of spending, particularly in the benefits sector and so I think we've not heard the last of debates about about the budget for the next when the next one comes along but in the meantime like I say as it affects business in M &A I think people people are just getting on with it at the moment.

29:32Chris Maguire:A very quick question from one of our regular listeners Jonathan can you explain the difference between buyer side and sales side? So all that really means is you know when a corporate finance advisor is selling a business. They're appointed by the shareholders of the business, sometimes the directors of the business, to run a sale process and sell the business, and that's sell side. Sometimes we're asked to advise a buyer of a business, so a private equity house or a corporate that is making an acquisition, and that's buy side. And on each side, there's an army of advisors on the buy side and on the sell side.

30:10There's lawyers, due diligence providers, there's corporate finance advisors and various other people get involved on both sides so that's just what the jargon is whether you're sell side or buy side okay final question i work as a tech

30:23Chris Maguire:journalist as well lots of businesses are using technology to run their businesses are you yeah so we've we use some some technology software called deal cloud to as the primary way that we manage our business deal cloud um runs all the way through our business it is a crm system at one end of the spectrum but it's also an execution platform so um all our origination activity we monitor on deal cloud so we can see every meeting that people people people go out to meet new new potential clients all the pitches are on deal cloud all the jobs are executed so the buyer's logs are executed on deal cloud so um so i've got loads of information about our business that they whenever we approach say an investor or a private equity house their account is automatically updated so every every pe house i can i can immediately see what we've shown them and what you know whether they bid and what they bid so i get as a leader of that business i get So much information I can see at a glance what our pipeline of work's like, how much we think our forward order book looks like.