Executive profile

• Phil led Totty Construction Group from a highly geared, loss-making local building company with negative assets and revenues of only $16m in 1992 to one of the largest construction groups in the North of England with revenues of $120m and operating profits of $4.9m in 10 years.

• Phil, as the largest single shareholder of Totty Construction Group, completed a reverse takeover of Shorco Group Holdings (a public company listed on the London Stock Exchange) to form Peterhouse Group plc in 1997. At this time, Shorco Group Holdings had revenues of $16m)and made an operating profit of $0.9m. Phil led the organic and acquisition growth of the Construction and Property Developments Division as Managing Director and supported the radical change in the Group which resulted in revenues of $483m and profits of $24m by the year 2001. Over this four-year period the market capitalization of the business increased from $17m to $264m, the share price grew from 80 pence to 450 pence and the earning per share improved from 5 pence to 29 pence.

• On behalf of Peterhouse Group plc, Phil acquired, improved and grew several construction and property businesses. Particularly noteworthy was the purchase in 2002 of Dean & Bowes, a national shop-fitting business. At the time of acquisition Dean & Bowes had revenues of $112m and was incurring losses of more than $6.6m. Due to the losses, the purchase price was only $0.4m. Phil's turnaround strategy brought the business under control, reducing revenues back to historic levels of $60m whilst improving the return – the business made an operating profit of £1.6m ($2.1) within 2 years.

• Phil lead the Management Buy-Out of Propencity Group from Peterhouse Group plc in January 2003 for a purchase price of $30.8m. This was supported by $23.8m of funding from Bank of Scotland, $1.65m of share capital (80% management/20% bank) and the balance as debt to Peterhouse Group plc. The debt to Peterhouse was repaid immediately and within two years the bank funding was reduced to $9.2m. An onward sale of Propencity Group to ISG plc (a fully listed public company) was completed in September 2005 for a consideration that translating to full repayment of debt and a potential 760% rise in equity value in less than three years.

• Phil was appointed a Director on ISG plc's Group board following the acquisition of Propencity Group. He was responsible for leading the integration of the Propensity businesses (9 companies in 3 brands) and supporting the growth of a $1.45Bn revenue group.

• Phil joined Redhall Group plc (a public company listed on the London Stock Exchange) in 2012 and led the business as Group Chief Executive Officer from June 2014. The Group had sustained 5 consecutive years of losses amounting to $53m, continued to sustain significant losses and utilized all its $32m banking facilities most of the time. Phil developed a strategic turnaround plan for the group and gained support for this plan from the Groups bankers and largest shareholders. He delivered phase 1 of the plan in 18 months, consisting of reducing debt, extracting the group from high-risk loss-making areas, reducing costs and focusing the core manufacturing of high integrity products. This was achieved by selling non-core businesses and assets for $9.9m, exiting from loss making markets whilst recovering outstanding debtors of $4.6m, centralizing support functions, fundraising by placing $7.3m of new equity and reducing debt further through a debt for equity swap with the largest shareholder. Phil delivered Phase 2 of the plan, growing the manufacturing order book from $14.5m in December 2015 to $35.5m in December 2015 the delivery of which was supported by a fund raiding and debt swap of $17.5m in September 2017. On stepping down from the CEO role at the end of 2017 to relocate to the States, the Group had returned to operating profit and was cash positive with its bank. 

*all values were originally in GBP converted to USD at a rate of $1.32 to £1.00