Guy’s personal experience of acquiring owner-managed businesses is extensive, having worked on over 150 deals and acquiring revenues in his own business portfolio of over £26M in the process.
He also advises and consults on both acquisitions and business sales for other entrepreneurs. He has experience of a wide range of business sectors and deal structures including hedge funds, venture capital, private equity and commercial debt and finance.
In addition to growth by acquisition, Guy has also built three separate businesses from scratch to over 7 figures in sales, so he understands in detail the challenges and effort that owner-managers put into their businesses.
From the mid-1990s to 2003 Guy built up The Charles Parry Group specialising in retail and mail-order direct marketing. His clients included JD Sports, EIDOS Interactive, Iceland Frozen Foods, Kwik Save Stores, The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, Trinity Mirror Newspapers, Nike UK, Manchester City Football Club and Sainsbury’s Supermarkets. As Group Managing Director he generated sales of over £7m during 7 years with a core team of 10 people before exiting the Group in 2003.
After recovering from a fractured spine in 2004, he focused on the development of a building services group and gained extensive experience of negotiating preferred supplier status with major UK PLCs such as Carillion, SPIE and Sodexo delivering services and projects for clients including HMRC, The Coastguard, Unilever and Rolls Royce Engineering. The business also worked directly with the National Trust on heritage projects and collaborated with private developers for clients like Morrisons Supermarkets.
At the same Guy was actively involved in the development of acquisition processes and creating a panel of investors and funders to acquire Owner Managed Businesses in the UK, in the turnover range of £1m-£20m, processes that he continues to refine today.