From maverick young advisor to one of the more important industrial figures in the region, Douglas Barrowman proves that some advisors can hack it when it comes to running businesses of their own. A fitting intro to our top 50 North West advisors.

There are two Douglas Barrowmans.

That sentence alone is guaranteed to have many in the region's corporate finance establishment spilling their morning coffee. In the eyes of the suits one Barrowman is one too many.

However, it is true. There are two Douglas Barrowmans.

There is the cocksure corporate financier who set up his own practice in the mid-1990s at the ridiculously young age of 30 and spent a considerable amount of time antagonising the region's corpfin establishment. The Barrowman who would turn up to the opening of an envelope and of whom one senior figure sneered: "Very clever, just not serious."

This is the Barrowman of myth, who as suddenly as he arrived vanished off the radar. One day a colourful fixture on the cocktail circuit, the next a virtual recluse. Establishment heads nodded wisely. Couldn't compete in the end, they'd whisper. “Just Not Serious.”

Then there is the real Douglas Barrowman. Still provocative, but more measured now and at just 43 on top of his game. This Barrowman in just seven years has, without fanfare, become a serious player on the UK’s manufacturing scene.

At the time of writing, his Aston Ventures operation, which was founded in 2001, owns and controls manufacturing companies with a combined turnover of some £400 million. He is now the owner of the third biggest cable making company in the world, has a series of future acquisitions on his desk and, impressively in the current market, the ability to fund most of them.

Aston is almost a standalone industrial conglomerate – as far from a traditional investment company as it is possible to be without stretching the very meaning of the words.

Sitting in the offices of Manchester-based B3 Cables, one of the eight companies owned by Aston, it is clear that Barrowman regrets the brashness of his younger self, but only because it detracts from the far more substantial things that he and his partners have since achieved.

"Things did get blown out of proportion. I did what was necessary at the time in the interests of my clients," he says.

"I fought hard for them and turning up at networking events every night was part of the price.

"KPMG and others had the manual for £50 million MBOs. Every morning I had to wake up and fight the big boys for business – publicity was part of that."

Unusually, he also had some empathy for the business of business. As a newly-qualified accountant he introduced paintballing to Scotland, later selling his company – and had always tended to regard himself as an entrepreneur who just happened to know the detailed workings of corporate finance, rather than as a corporate finance clone.

He was one of the first advisors to start taking small stakes in companies, off-setting his fees, particularly during the dotcom boom. He shakes his head ruefully: "All my training should have told me that the valuations were nonsense, but no. For a year or so I was a very busy fool."

However, seeing the potential for stake-building and understanding the restrictions on venture capitalists, in terms of the straitjacket that is the internal rate of return, he began to ponder the types of industry that could be bought and improved with minimal risk to the purchasers.

His answer, surprisingly, was old economy firms: manufacturers with big asset bases, strong balance sheets and cash flow and long trading records. Financial engineering skills would allow such deals to be done and a philosophy of buy-and-build, rather than invest and exit, would be adopted.

Aston Ventures was born and quickly recruited two very strong corporate financiers in Paul Ruocco and later Tim Eve, both of TMG Corporate. Interestingly, later partners, such as Mike Walton and Mark William, came from operational rather than finance backgrounds which gives some idea of the evolution through which Aston is going.

The fact that the company is neither limited nor an LLP brings a smile to Barrowman's face when questioned. "A group of businessmen working together at a particular time," he says enigmatically.

What is clear is that Aston has become a major manufacturing player, to the point where it is difficult to grasp whether it is an investment vehicle that happens to buy manufacturing companies, or a manufacturing conglomerate with very loose synergies and an aggressive diversification strategy. It is certainly a unique model.

Barrowman himself acknowledges the blurring of lines. "The companies run as separate companies. Getting in the right people, or getting out the wrong ones is crucial.

"And if you go to all the trouble to get the right management and then incentivise them, you don't interfere in operational matters. But no major strategic decision is taken without Aston being consulted.

"And of course, if there is a deal to be done – B3 has just acquired a £75 million-turnover Spanish company – then there is the benefit of having in-house the type of skills that we have."

The buy and build strategy has worked so well – B3 was picked up in 2006 for £18 million from Missouri-based BeldenCDT (its 26 acre land bank providing the comfort) and is now reckoned to be worth over £100 million – that a "normal" investment house would have been flooded with approaches to manage other people's funds.

"Well we have done far better than most of them out there, but would we manage for someone else...?" Barrowman raises an eyebrow. "What do you think?"

Barrowman's role at Aston nowadays – and he is based on the Isle of Man – is as the pointman. Always there at the first meeting with prospective vendors.

"I talk the language of business. If it's a family firm, for example, I know about the problems of succession; what the concerns are. They might want to keep a small stake, or to make sure their employees and key people are looked after.

"We are flexible. Whatever it takes to get the deal done we'll try to do – and these types of businesses appreciate that."

For all investment vehicles, there has to be an exit strategy, but Aston does not appear to have a clear cut one. Of course, everyone knows that an exit will come one day – last year Aston sold three companies – but the key strategy at the moment is, refreshingly, to take the businesses it buys onto the next level. B3 has grown so rapidly because of the mix of strategic acquisition and strong management teams.

For the North West this means that Aston has created hundreds of new manufacturing jobs and safeguarded hundreds of others.

Just Not Serious? It is instructive that the man behind the quote now has his own small business sideline... in buy-to-let. Both Douglas Barrowmans would find that amusing.

---