PR boss tells of plans for future

Apr 9 2008 by Robert Llewellyn Jones, Western Mail

TO entrepreneurs, opportunity is the oxygen on which they thrive.

Shakespeare recognised this. What good a folio full of great works if there was no stage on which to present them. So the playwright joined a consortium that built a theatre where his works could be performed to a paying audience. This made him wealthy and lead him to remark: “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”

For Steve Howell, chief executive of Cardiff-based Freshwater UK, an opportunity taken led to commercial success.

In the boardroom of Freshwater’s headquarters at Cardiff Gate Business Park he is relaxed and in full command of his brief.

“I had an ambition to get into journalism,” he said.

“At the time I was working in communications and public relations for Sheffield City Council, when my wife decided she wanted to return to Wales. With only a limited experience of journalism and a great deal of persistence I got a job on the South Wales Argus reporting primarily on sport.”

From there he moved to the BBC where, sensing the presence of a glass ceiling and the inevitability of a move to London if his career was to progress, he took the decision to combine his experience of the media industry and forge a new career as a public relations consultant.

Now he is able to look back on that decision and reflect: “It was a leap in the dark which I was able to take because my wife was a doctor and earning a decent salary. I had a part time contract as press officer for the Wales Council for Voluntary Action, which gave me an income while I was trying to develop the business.”

Fortune, we are told, favours the brave and Mr Howell’s decision to strike out on his own, with no clients and tenuous links to the business community, was rewarded when a speculative letter to the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport resulted in a meeting with their newly appointed marketing manager.

The result was a business relationship that was to last six years and form the basis on which the present company is built.

“We had to recruit to service our clients not just PR but in graphic design and media buying,” said Mr Howell.

All good things, he acknowledges, come to an end, but in his case one door closing [Celtic Manor] meant another opening and almost immediately his company started work for the European Tour and Ryder Cup as their PR agency in Wales.

With the profile gained from association with the Ryder Cup and a raft of new contacts he was able to move the business forward in terms of organic growth, increasing staff to 20 and opening a Cardiff office in addition to his Newport headquarters.

In 2004, now re-branded as Freshwater, the business ranked among the larger agencies in Wales. This, in turn brought its own dilemma.

Mr Howell said: “It was a case of do we remain content and consolidate our position or look to grow across the UK.”

The question was answered for him.

“At that moment I saw an opportunity to create a regional network across Britain. There were other independent agencies in the regions all good at their jobs which, if joined together, would be able to compete with some of the London-based agencies with the advantage of not having London overheads while retaining a regional presence,” he said.

“Other operators in the PR sector had regional networks. “What was different about us was ours was headquartered in Wales and within one integrated operation we had both a regional network and specialist teams who could provide clients with this combined service.”

Such a strategy was to pay dividends when Freshwater were appointed the agency responsible for the John Lewis Partnership’s store opening programme across the UK.

Embracing strategy with all the enthusiasm of a desk general, Mr Howell said: “You cannot go from being a small agency in Wales to a top UK agency just on organic growth.

“Although organic growth has been a key part of our strategy you cannot achieve the level of growth we are seeking without making acquisitions.”

To finance this Freshwater were supported by a number of private investors, as well significant equity backing from Finance Wales, which ultimately led to a flotation on London’s Alternative Investment Market (Aim) last year.

This solid financial base has allowed Freshwater to acquire 10 companies since 2004 through a process described as “more about a meeting of minds than pounds shillings and pence.”

Mr Howell said: “Those who join Freshwater see this as a new phase in their business careers through the joining of forces.

“So although we are the acquirer the executive committee of Freshwater comprises six people, four of whom are from acquired businesses, while the plc board has two who were principals of acquired businesses. It’s important you get to know each other before you do the deal and know that these are people you want to work with.”

This is not, he stresses, financial engineering. Not about buying a business and looking at how it can be tweaked here and there. It’s a meshing of these different businesses into one seamless, forward looking, growing enterprise.

On flotation, Mr Howell said it was initially envisaged for 2004.

He added: “We knew that at a certain stage in our strategy we would have to consider this especially if we wanted to make larger acquisitions and achieve our aim of being a top 10 UK PR business.

“The question was timing and that was fraught with difficulties.”

Between 2004 and 2007 Aim had gone from being a vehicle for small growth companies seeking finance to a congested marketplace where companies competed for money from the same batch of institutional investors.

Against this background the idea of going ahead with a proposed listing at the end of 2006 was deferred until early 2007, when the acquisition of Attenborough Saffron ensured Freshwater was of a size to meet market requirements. Again timing was of the essence.

Mr Howell said: “I felt we needed to get the listing done immediately and I’m glad we did because later that year Northern Rock came along and the market took a down turn.”

As for the future he said. “We are still a work in progress, but our aim is to become the outright leading regional network, a company where all our specialist teams are among the sector leaders.

“If you are a sector leader you are more likely to be invited to tender for major work in that sector,” he said.

“My view of the PR industry is that either you need to be a big player or boutique. Freshwater has set its stall out to be among the big players and offer a full PR service. So it’s important we carry the strategy forward and finish what we have started and not be caught between two strategies.

“For us the key factor must be to carry our strategy forward and establish a position as an industry leader”

To reinforce this grand design he has assembled a team of people who have built their own businesses working alongside those he describes as “having been brought up through the Freshwater ranks.”

Rewards, however, come at a price and that price is a strong work ethic.

“Our clients pay us to get results for them,” he said.

“We wouldn’t survive in this challenging environment if we didn’t have high professional standards and be innovative about how we do things.”

There is in this a subliminal message – if people want a quiet life they would be better in the public sector. If they want something stimulating then this is the place to be.