As the Howard Group prepares for its milestone 80th anniversary this year, Chief Executive Nicholas Bewes is already planning for the company’s centenary. “It’s about longevity in a family business,” he explains, from his office at the company’s recently reinvigorated Regent Street HQ. “We’re thinking thirty or forty years ahead and I certainly spend a lot of time thinking about the fourth generation and how the decisions we are making today will impact them. Our whole outlook as a business is very different to many other companies because we know we’ll be around for the next 80 years and beyond. The decisions we make today are critically important.”
Family businesses in the UK generate almost £1.1trillion in revenue each year, according to the Institute for Family Business (IFB) – which equates to over a quarter of UK GDP. It’s an encouraging figure, and with more than 100,000 family businesses handed on to the next generation each year, the importance of honouring the family name is not to be underestimated. “Our values are at the heart of everything we do,” continues Nicholas, who is also the Regional Chair for the IFB. “As a company, we take our role as stewards of the Howard Group – essentially what our name stands for – seriously and the way we do business is a reflection of this. Integrity is the cornerstone of our culture and our long-term reputation is much more important to us than a short-term deal. I think we strive even harder because we’ve got the family name above the door.”
Over the past 15 years, since Nicholas took over from his father-in-law, the company has grown significantly in size and evolved its strategic focus to rationalise its business activities and develop additional long-term revenue streams.
Safeguarding the future of the group is as much about challenging the status quo and reinjecting some of the entrepreneurial spirit of the company’s founder CAEC ‘Jimmy’ Howard, who built the company through WWII. His eye for opportunity led to the founding of the Hemelite concrete block company – a business that was sold to Tarmac in 1983 and in part financed the family’s entry into the commercial property market.
Today, Howard Group comprises two distinct entities – Howard Property, a property investment and development business and Howard Capital, which invests growth capital in a range of privately owned companies. The company has £100million in assets and a development portfolio with an end value nearing £150million, including key sites in Cambridge, Bedford and London. Reshaping the group’s property investment business is a major focus in the short-term –over the past two years alone, Howard Group has taken longstanding assets worth around £40million to the market.
With a flurry of commercial activity underway already in 2015, the group’s state-of-the-art Tea Shed development in Lewisham has already attracted global logistics company DHL Express as a tenant, signing a pre-let agreement for a 57,000sq ft unit. It’s a sign of things to come for Howard Group, which also owns Iconix Park in Sawston and the adjoining Trade Park. Several new developments are in the pipeline close to home, including various student accommodation schemes working with a number of Cambridge Colleges. In Bedford, following a successful B&Q development at Interchange Park last year, further retail space is being built to accommodate regional car dealership Motorvogue as well as units for Costa Coffee and M&S Food.
“I was approached initially by my father-in-law in 1997 and it took about three years for me to take such a large decision, and to think it was the right thing to step out of a more traditional career. I was worried about doing that and yes, the merging of family and business is a big decision,” explains Nicholas, who worked for The BOC Group for ten years across a range of operational divisions before taking the reins at the family firm. “There were also certain things in the business that I was keen to have the ability to influence and change. It took me some time to work that through and we’ve made some really substantial changes since that point.”
With the support of the wider family and a network of experienced non-executive directors from across the property industry, Nicholas has been able to build on the legacy of his father-in-law Brian Howard.
“As a son-in-law I think it’s easier to bring about change; you can perhaps say or do things that as a son or daughter it wouldn’t be quite so easy to do,” Nicholas explains. “There is a degree of objectivity. ‘Handing on’ a business is difficult if you’ve poured yourself into the business emotionally and are passionate about it. The change management experience I gained at BOC helped enormously as I was able to come in to the business and look at it slightly more dispassionately. I may have been the catalyst for change but a large number of people have been instrumental in getting us to where we are today.
“We were involved in all sorts of things when I joined – we had a transport business, an engineering business, block making, retail… and we did property. It was clear that the property part was the most profitable. Some of the other interests were a drain on resource and also on cash. So for someone coming in new and saying we need to refocus the business, that’s a tough thing to do.”
Keeping the family values ever-present in the business is central to Nicholas’ recruitment and HR approach too. The group has set itself the goal of being considered an ‘enlightened employer’ and this extends to future generations as well as for current staff. “It’s important to us that our people feel like an extension of our family and are emotionally invested,” Nicholas adds.
“We want people to feel cherished and valued – how we relate to and treat each other is at the core of how we look after people. We’ve also set some pretty strict rules about who can come into the business from the next generation. We’ve stipulated that any family member that joins in the future must have at least five years’ experience elsewhere so they can come to the table knowing they are serious about the business. Perhaps it’s not necessarily the case for all family businesses, but for us it’s essential that anyone coming in should have relevant experience.”
With the next chapter in the Howard Group’s story taking shape, there is no doubt that the family name is in safe hands. The company may be 80 this year but there is little chance they’ll be slowing down any time soon.
This was featured in the April 2015 edition of Cambridge Business magazine. Read the original feature here.