Helping Academia get to £100m Sales….

Academia is a very successful technology company that broke through the £100m Sales milestone in year ended 30^th June 2022. The business was incorporated in May 2003 and appeared 5 years in a row on the Sunday Times Tech Track 100.

David Cardno was Academia’s part time Finance Director from 2012 to 2017 playing a full role in board meetings and in developing the finance team.

Specifically, David helped recruit a new Financial Controller in 2013 and then covered for her when she went on maternity leave. David also helped recruit a full time Finance Director in March 2017, six months before leaving Academia.

During David’s time with Academia the speed and quality of the monthly financial reporting and tracking improved significantly.

Academia was led by Mike Bacon, who had developed a really strong sales culture and also made Academia a very exciting client to work with.

Mike was also not scared to take tough decisions as following much discussion by the leaders of the business, Mike decided to pull out of two failing ventures that had become a distraction for the senior team.

Background to decision to acquire

Learning from the previous investments, Academia carried out business review to look for opportunities to improve the margins in the business and uncovered two business areas that the business wanted to focus on.

Following this review, it was decided that Recycling would become one of the focus area because:-

• The business was already involved in recycling as a service to its clients.
• Analysis suggested it was a relatively high margin activity.
• This diversification was good for Corporate Social Responsibility.

Having played a full role in the strategic discussions, David then played a significant supporting role in making an acquisition June 2016.

Mike Bacon, the MD, drew up a list of potential targets for acquisition and over a nine month period David helped Mike with a number of high level discussions as we went through his list of targets.

David was involved in three different site visits and had meetings and discussions with the shareholders and management of three target companies. David reviewed the finances and business plans of these targets.

Importantly, David also helped Mike when he was proposing deal structures that made sense for Academia. Eventually, after a number of discussions we agreed an “earn out” deal with the shareholders of Charterhouse Muller UK Limited during June 2016.

A successful acquisition is not just about “money” and numbers. It is also about finding the right shareholders and management to find a deal and plan that works for all parties.

Hindsight has shown that this acquisition has been very good for the Academia group, adding significantly to group profit.

With acquisitions the chances of success are increased when there are quality discussions and planning in advance of the deal. Like everything else in business – the harder you work the luckier you get.