The Bluebox Blog

June 16, 2023

As part of our Entrepreneur Series, we had the pleasure of getting to know James Wheeler, Managing Director at Fireco – a leading UK provider of fire safety and building compliance solutions. In this interview, we chat to James about his experience of the M&A process. He also shares some tips for business owners looking to sell their business, the best advice he’s ever received and much more…

What was your background prior to joining Fireco?

In 2008, I joined a company called Lenel, specialists in the manufacture of access control, in the role of field sales engineer, working with customers like Microsoft, Apple and Cisco. I then moved into business development across the UK and Europe and finished as Regional Director for the UK, Ireland and Bermuda. I was there for 10 years until I joined ASSA ABLOY, working across EMEA. I think I took something like 130 flights in 18 months, so it was a lot of travelling. I’ve got three children, so that was quite tough. Then a recruiter called and told me about a position at Fireco, and it just happened. It wasn’t planned. I joined Fireco as Sales and Marketing Director, and after about 18 months, I moved into the Managing Director role.

How has Fireco evolved since you joined the business?

We have expanded our product range. We’re selling the same products that we have always sold, Dorgard and Freedor, but have developed them into our new ‘Pro range’, so it’s the door retainer and closer but in a radio version. Rather than the product being triggered acoustically, it’s triggered by radio, like Wi-Fi but at a different frequency. That means that we can sell the products for Category A fire doors, which are normally escape routes and more critical paths out of the building. We wanted to give end users control over the hardware through a graphical user interface, so we invented a product called InSite, where you can monitor and control the door devices, releasing them, putting the building into lockdown and setting timers so the doors shut at a certain time.

We’ve built a number of apps, such as Roll Call. This app means that if the fire alarm is activated, you can mark yourself as being safe or needing assistance from wherever you are, using your phone.  This app will work over the cellular network just about anywhere in the world, so that’s been quite exciting. We’re also just about to launch a new product, which we’re calling DorMag. When I joined Fireco, I didn’t know what Dorgard was. I hadn’t seen one, but I knew what the magnet looked like that held the door open. I think we’ve all seen one being used to keep doors open. This new product will look exactly the same, but it will be 100% wireless, battery-powered, and, again, triggered acoustically or via radio. So that’s exciting because it’s just about to launch.

We’ve also developed the DorTrak app, so as our inspectors are walking around a building inspecting the doors, the app allows you to see if your doors are passing or failing. The new laws that came out last year require fire doors to be inspected at least once a year, so this app will help people get that done, allowing them to bring all that information together and store it digitally as opposed to using paper records.

So, we’ve done a lot, and we’re at a really exciting time with products and services that should put us quite far ahead in the sector.

What makes Fireco unique in the industry?

I think our products are unique; we’re very niche. We make products that hold open fire doors compliantly, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a competitor, it’s still called a door guard. We’ve built that as a brand, and I think that’s what’s made us unique.

Fireco has recently been acquired by Largercrantz Group; how did you find the M&A process? What were the biggest challenges you faced during the process and how did you get past them?

I think the biggest challenge was the fact that we had so many stakeholders. We had a chairman, the Fireco partners, and four directors as well, and I think that’s quite a big group of decision-makers, all holding a different number of shares. That was probably quite hard for Bluebox to work with because I’d imagine that, typically, a company just has one MD to liaise with, so I think that was probably Jonathan’s biggest challenge. The journey began when we started working with Bluebox, who sent out the main document that goes out to all potential buyers. We started getting interest, which was a very busy period for me and very repetitive. Sometimes it’d be a no, and sometimes they’d go away and think about it, and it would be a no, and it felt like there were a lot of those.

I’d compare it very much to selling a house. You could have lots of people walk through the door, but no-one buys your house, and you start to question what’s wrong with it. But it just takes the right person to come through who sees all the benefits and the potential, falls in love with it, and makes an offer. That was our experience with Lagercrantz. We are at a growing stage, and Lagercrantz could see that, and they wanted to support us on that journey, which feels good because they could quite easily have said “not interested” or “we’ll come back later”. But they did what nobody else was prepared to do, which was help us get where we needed to be. So, I think the challenges were the positives; it was a journey I’d never experienced before. Working with Bluebox was great, and Jonathan was really good, leaving me to do what I needed to do – the pitches. Then, when it came to the numbers, the due diligence and all the back-end, he managed that with our finance director. I felt very secure that Jonathan was on top of it all, because he was obviously very good at it and very good at communicating with both us and Lagercrantz until completion.

What three tips do you have for other business owners looking to sell their business and embark on the M&A process?

I would say the biggest tip would be that even if you’re not looking to sell your business, get ready to sell your business. I think this is where Bluebox’s Blue Diamond came in. You don’t have to be looking to sell your business to sign up for Bluebox’s Blue Diamond, it is used to get you into that position. There is also a lot of data you need to get together.

Luckily, we’re quite good at that, as we’ve got really good internal systems. We track everything, and it’s almost like we’ve been training for the last 10 years without realising it, but I imagine 90% of companies just haven’t got that ready, and I think you should. What really helped us was that even if we didn’t sell, all the work we did getting ready to sell helped us grow our business because you look at where you’re wasting money and how you can save money in areas of the business you maybe didn’t think about before. You start thinking about where you want to be in three or five years, and what’s the end result. So, the biggest bit of advice really is to get ready to sell, even if you’re not ready to sell, I suppose.

And I could break that down into more points, which would be to get all your data in order and make sure that everything is stored, trackable and easy to find. I think it’s important to look at what you’ve done for however many years, but also to look at where the business is going to go, because obviously any investor is going to want to see that what they’re investing in is going to get stronger and stronger. Just make sure you cover every area of the expected due diligence and make sure you cover anything you’ve done in the past that might pop up again. One of the stories I heard was that somebody forgot to get one of their share certificates signed and just shook hands when they gave somebody 50% of their business. That’s lovely until someone comes to buy it and there’s no paperwork. Essentially, someone still owns some of it, but now it’s nowhere to be seen. So it’s important to just be ready to sell, even if you’re not ready to sell.

Now that Fireco has been sold, what’s next on the cards for you?

Next on the cards for me, unfortunately, is my first trip to Italy next week to meet with Lagercrantz. The way they introduce new employees to the 70 strong workforce is to make them stand on a stage and sing to everybody, so that’s why I use the word unfortunately. But for us in particular, it will be about working with Lagercrantz weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly, to make sure we hit our numbers, and make sure that we continue to listen to their advice because, through the due diligence process, we learned a lot from them. The whole experience in itself, even if we were to have not completed the sale, was valuable.

Now that we’re owned by Lagercrantz, we will just execute what we had already planned, which is looking at ways to grow to better support our customers, to make sure Dorgard is a product everybody loves, and to make sure we look after our team so we’re stronger for the future.

What two personality traits do you believe make a good managing director or leader?

Empathy is massive for me. From experience, I know what it’s like to work for people you can run scared of, working in fear is horrible. I like to try to treat others as I would want to be treated. When you have shy or less confident staff members, it’s important for me to really help them, leading by example as well. Just because you’ve had the blessing to work at higher levels doesn’t mean that you’ve got the right to show off and preach. It’s about making sure you lay the ladder down for other people to climb. That’s big for me, and I think that the biggest reward for me is when you see somebody join your company who leaves in five years and gets an amazing job. That means I’ve done my job.

Overall, I’d say empathy, honesty, and a good sense of humour. Anything else can be learned from a book, but these are the key personality traits that I think you need to be a good leader.

What is the most important piece of advice you’ve ever been given and by whom?

Probably one of my last managers, Kevin Swan, who’s now the managing director for Kentec. He said, “Within reason, try not to care what people think of you.” That kind of hit home because, going back to working for previous managers, you do worry about what people say and you do question, “Am I good enough? What can I do to change?” And then you find out that it’s just that person’s opinion, everybody else thinks I’m pretty good at what I do. Once you learn to back yourself and accept that you are good at what you do, it’s very freeing not to be weighed down by others’ opinions, especially if they’re wrong. That’s what he meant by don’t worry about what others think of you. It sounds kind of obvious, but when you put it into practice and look at everything that goes behind that, it’s a very powerful thing to be able to master.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

It would be that I could continue as I am with my awful diet and never put weight on. I also think the real, honest answer is that we’ve all got a superpower we don’t use, which, going back to one of my previous questions, is empathy. It’s just about being kind to one another. We can unlock that tomorrow if people think about it.

You’re stranded on a desert island and can have only three things.  What are they?

I suppose it would be a phone. Well, depending on if there’s a plug socket. Also the phone charger and signal.

If you could have dinner with anyone past or present, who would it be?

That would be my grandma, 100%, because I loved her cooking.

If you could only eat one dish for a month straight, what would it be?

Pizza. I’d actually go for Margherita because it’s a classic.

Anything else you’d like to add?

Jonathan and Paul were a pleasure to work with, and I think what I enjoyed as well was that it was good fun. They could switch on my serious button, and they could be very professional, but at the same time, when the phone rang, you would always look forward to speaking to them because they were good people to work with.