Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the Dealmaker Uncut podcast where we speak to some of the UK's most exciting entrepreneurs and hear their investment journeys. We'll discuss the challenges, successes and lessons they've learned along the way with expert deals commentary from Jonathan Boyers, Head of Alvarez and Marcel Corporate Finance, and me, Chris McGuire, executive editor at Business Cloud.
Welcome everyone to the latest episode of the Dealmaker Uncut podcast, powered by Alvarez and Marcel. My name is Chris McGuire and I'm the Executive Editor of Business Cloud. As always, I'm joined by the multiple award winning dealmaker himself, Jonathan Boyers. Jonathan's been involved in deals totalling billions of pounds during his long and illustrious career and he's a Managing director and the head of Alvarez and Marcel's corporate finance practice in the uk. Welcome, Jonathan.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Thanks, Chris. Great to be here.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: Now this podcast gets you inside the deal. In the first part of the show we're going to be interviewing our special guest. After that we'll then have a short break. And in part two, Jonathan will be leaning on his 35 plus years of working in corporate finance to answer listener questions. So Jonathan, who are we speaking to today?
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Thanks, Chris. Well, today we're talking to somebody who's been a friend of mine for many years, John Hughes.
Like me, John spent most of his career working at KPMG before leaving in 2016 after 29 years.
Now since then he's gone from strength to strength. He's worked as chairman, non exec, director, advisor, interim CEO and probably a number of other roles as well. One of the companies he's been involved in, Modern Milkman, recently announced a 10 million pound fundraise. John's currently the Chairman of Cortus Advisory Group, which is another business that's doing really well.
And we'll find out more about what John's been up to, so. Hi John, great to have you.
[00:01:55] Speaker C: Well, thank you both. It's great to be here. A bit nervous but it's great.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: It sounds a bit like this is your life, doesn't it John? And actually, since we wrote the script and we spoke, you've joined Serwenna, which is a recruitment platform as well. So you really are a busy bee, jon. During your 29 years at KPMG, you were head of private equity and spent 25 years in M and A advising as well. Just give our listeners and our viewers a brief summary of your KPMG career.
[00:02:19] Speaker C: Wow, how long have you got?
Yeah, traditional path going from audits. In those days, they sent us around different places, including tax and pensions. Believe it or not.
And then I landed into, did some what they call transformational consulting today.
And then I did various things which I'm very proud of and humbled was a cornerstone of setting up what is today's kpmg Global Transaction Services, which was really good. That took me around the world. It enabled me to join the global board for learning and Development and they threw in a couple of seconds one in Australia, which was fantastic.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: You were one of the first full time due diligence partners. Due diligence people, absolutely.
[00:03:05] Speaker C: When I first started, I actually worked and reported into a corporate finance partner as myself and me and that was it. And started writing engagement letters from scratch and then became the first partner.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: So at kpmg your clients included the likes of Shop Direct, Findall and Eddie Stobart. When you left in 2016, you had the obvious choice to become group chairman of the loss making delivery giant Yodel. So what was the situation that you found yourself in at Yodel and what was the brief? Because it was in a sticky situation, wasn't it?
[00:03:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I got, without wishing to name drop, I got a call from Aidan Barclay asking me to come in and be as chairman and to mentor the CEO, which was fantastic in that respect.
What I found was horrendous.
You know, it was. Almost nothing worked. And probably anyone listening in on this podcast would probably upset most of them in terms of a failed delivery.
But it needed a full transformation, it needed a brand resetting, it needed new people.
Bought in. But fundamentally it needed the integrity to be brought back into it.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: And you were the chairman, but I mean some people see that as a bit of a ceremonial role. But you actually decamped yourself down to Hatfield in Hertfordshire.
[00:04:25] Speaker C: Oh, I worked Monday to Friday in Hatfield in various hotels with support and blessing of my partner Louise.
And you get through it. But it was an executive chairman and for a period, I can't remember what it was, about six months, I was actually CEO as well.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: Must have been quite a change from being an advisor.
[00:04:45] Speaker C: You know, it was. Jonathan, you know, we go through these sort of, you hear these cliches now and again, you know, it's lonely. Well, it was, it was scary, you know, by yourself, who to trust, who not to trust.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: Okay. And so once, I think, I'm not sure if you'd finished it at Yodle, you became a non exec director and the interim finance director at Revive Global.
Do you want to talk about that for a little while?
[00:05:12] Speaker C: Yeah, that was an interesting one. Again, another purposeful business run by an incredibly charismatic Powerhouse Sarah Lomas, with a personal desire to bring preventative, personalised health to a lot more people, which is fantastic, that was involved in sitting on the board, helping raise finance, bringing new people on.
Yeah, it was interesting.
Left a few years ago now, but yeah.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: Okay. And so you've been involved in with a couple of other, well, several businesses actually, that have been involved in sort of early stage fundraising.
You're currently the acting CEO of a company called Steamerco, but you were also the chairman of Qualtex, which I think was Qualtex Global, where you were involved in a fundraiser there.
So I think it would be useful if you could just talk a little bit about the fundraising environment for these types of businesses.
[00:06:13] Speaker C: I think if I start with the end in mind, then I think what I've learned, and I've had to learn a lot, is make sure you go with funders you can trust and who are supportive. So at Stemaco we have Dave Foreman, who's, you know, of Victoria, who's gone through the recently hugely successful merger. So having someone like Dave supporting you is fantastic. Or even people like Mercia, Steven at Mercia. Mercia, you know, it's sort of. Because when the chips are down, you need those type of investors behind you.
And I think the other thing is to take the journey on. You make sure you've got the support at home, the support in the office, because it's hideous, it's difficult and you've got lots of responsibility, you've got lots of jobs to look after and it's emotionally straining.
It's very difficult.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: You know, when companies go belly up and they run into trouble over investment, is it because they chose the wrong investor at the beginning? And when you go into a business and no disrespect, but you've got a few gray hairs, you've been there, you've, you know, you've, you've got the CV and you're advising them and they get offers from different investors. Do you have to sometimes say to the founder, say that's the wrong person for us, because if it goes wrong, we're going to run into problem in two, three years time. Is that sort of what your role is as well?
[00:07:38] Speaker C: Yeah, a lot of my roles, certainly in the, that's called it. The technology space in the early stage stuff has been making sure the right team and founders work together. And if you've got founders that don't get on, for example, disagreement, that becomes hard yard. But you have to make some very difficult decisions.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: I was going to Ask you to describe what you thought the most important characteristics were for a sort of chairman non exec for businesses like this. What do you think are the most important things to bring to those?
[00:08:10] Speaker C: I think the most important thing I say when I talk and talking just recently joined Serena going through what does that really mean and what's the red lines?
As a chairman you are there for the responsibility for the company.
So beyond the investors, beyond the people, it is that company, those are the lines you can't cross and a lot of people just forget it.
[00:08:36] Speaker B: Yeah, because often if there's a PE house appoints a chairman, people perceive that they might be on the pea house's side or sometimes management want them to be on their side.
[00:08:45] Speaker C: And it's not about sides, it's absolutely the company, full stop.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: Just explain the way that process works. So I mean in football transfer window you have agents, okay. And they act on behalf of players and they try and negotiate deals for their players. Okay. So when you are a, you've got an impressive portfolio and you've got different non exec directors and chairmanships, etc, etc, how does that process work?
How would you be appointed a chairman of a company?
You know, would it be a, you know, is it like a nod, nod, wink, wink, or do you go through a process? Is it advertised? I think a lot of our listeners, a lot of our viewers, this will be completely new to them. John?
[00:09:28] Speaker C: Well, for some strange reason I've never really had to apply for anything as such. I've just been recommended, which is fantastic to the people who have given me that chance. But you do go through a proper process. You go through, you meet people, you know, invariably I will want to meet all the other board members, I will speak to the investors, they'll do the diligence on me and I'll go through a rigorous process.
And you know, if that doesn't happen, it would worry me because I want to be the right person for the job and I want someone else to assess that position as well.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: Would you turn down, yeah, I'm going
[00:10:06] Speaker B: to ask you about Modern Milkman.
[00:10:07] Speaker C: I do turn down roles, yes.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: So should we talk about Modern Milkman? Because that is a really interesting company.
It's just secured a 10 million pound investment from Celica Investments, which means, I think it's raised in total about 60 million. It's got quite a, a diverse shareholder base and it's growing from its roots in basically delivering milk to becoming a sort of grocery, a wider international grocery delivery business, isn't it? Would you Talk about that business for a little while.
[00:10:40] Speaker C: Yeah. This is.
What would it call. There's real irony here. Just go back to KPMG for a moment. One of my big transformation consulting projects was working on the demise of the doorstep delivery and working with the Milk Marketing Board and all those good things. And here I am today, you know, supporting Simon Mellon, whose father was a milkman, and it's going back to sustainable milk deliveries, but trying to do it with technology, trying to do it in a sustainable way and fundamentally trying to reorganise the doorstep. Now, let me just dwell on this. What does that really mean and own the doorstep? Most courier businesses, which I've worked in and which you'll see around today, the person dropping the parcel off or whatever has one aim in life and that's to get rid of, get out of there as soon as possible within two minutes. And no one's really taken time sort of to look at what else could be done at the doorstep. Speak to people, build relationships.
Modern milkman now is recycling. We're taking stuff back when we go and do the pickup.
So it's a really exciting business led by an incredibly entrepreneurial chap.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: It's a great business.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: One of the interesting things about Simon Mellon he just mentioned, of course, is that. Have you ever interviewed Simon?
[00:12:06] Speaker B: I've not interviewed him. I know him.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: Okay, okay. Because I mean, he is not your typical. He doesn't sound like your typical entrepreneur, does he? He's got broad East Lancashire accent, he's gone out to the US. He's been out there with his family for about 18 months. He posts pictures on Instagram under about 50 foot of snow. He's got a cauliflower ear because he likes martial arts. He's got tattoos down his arms. But what he is is he's just a really passionate, purpose driven entrepreneur. He's got a real idea how he wants to change the world. And that's so refreshing, isn't it?
[00:12:35] Speaker C: And he's a nice guy.
[00:12:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:36] Speaker C: And he's honest, he's got integrity, he's humble, he's. He's got all those qualities.
And he's fun as well.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Definitely fun. Yeah.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: Not everything you touch turns to gold.
Can we talk for a minute about your role as chairman of Zedifi, which was one of the UK's largest electric freight bike delivery networks? And I think that went into administration.
If you're dealing with early stage businesses, this happens now and again. But what went wrong?
[00:13:07] Speaker C: Yeah, that was, that was heartbreaking. You know, if you ever have A company that doesn't work and you have to let people go. And the impact on livelihoods, families, their jobs, how they feel is just a hideous.
Why did it go wrong? You know, ultimately, financial institutions strategically have a look at where they're going themselves.
And certainly for one of the financial institutions at the time, they decided that sustainable deliveries wasn't for them anymore. And it was. And I probably jinxed it as well because I can remember going home to my wife mid November 2024 and said, that's it, that's it, we're done. Now I've signed two contracts with GXO and had a blessing from GXO board. That's it, it's sorted, we're there. All we need now is to, to deliver on our promises. And two weeks later, I got told that the second round of funding wasn't going to happen.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: From a personal point of view, John, as somebody who's had a lot of success in your life, and I'd like Jonathan's take on this as well, is that you talked about, sometimes it can be a really lonely place. People look to you for answers and you can see the walls closing in on you. I mean, as somebody who's had success in your life, I mean, do you struggle to sleep?
You know, do you, you know, do you have to be somebody who rises above that and show direction to the board? You know, what's that process like for you? What's the experience like? And I'll ask Jonathan's take on it as well is that they just didn't get the funding they needed and without the funding, they couldn't survive. Is that, is that something you see a lot? But what would your answer be first, John?
[00:14:47] Speaker C: Well, to that sort of question really was, you know, emotionally, yeah, it really hurts. But you, you try and guard those emotions and you try and maybe, yeah, sometimes I don't sleep because I take it very personally. My wife would say I take it too personally. But it is important and there is that emotional side of it, but you have to leave the emotional side when you get back in the saddle the next morning and try and encourage people and motivate them to, you know, you go right to the end. You push yourselves right to the end.
But there's a key theme here. I'm lucky enough.
I've worked with some really, really good people in, you know, to help you through it, to help you through your legal duties. And I was thinking, you know, what really makes one of those people like Will Jones at Hill Dicks or whatever, Locally or John Noon, even Alvarez, Marcel. You know, they don't just give you the content advice, they help you on the emotional journey when, when you're having to deal with very, very complex personal things as well.
The advice from them is incredible.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: Jonathan the media often reports on the good stuff, doesn't it?
But not everything works.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: One of the most important ingredients for somebody, certainly in professional services and probably in wider business is resilience as a characteristic.
Things don't, things don't always go well. Occasionally everybody, we all get told we're not wanting to continue in our role or it's time to do something that you didn't necessarily want to. Maybe it's time to retire when you weren't ready and you need to pick yourself up and refocus and dust yourself down and start again. But from major things that happen to you sometimes, family matters, you know, relationships might fall away, people might pass away. You know, there's all sorts of things can happen. Really important to have resilience.
Also, every time something bad happens or, you know, you're never really sure whether it was completely bad, sometimes there's positive consequences arise from things that seem to be bad.
You know, if you think that, you know, if you lose your job that can be a catalyst for setting up a new business or doing something that you wouldn't have done if that hadn't happened.
And the opportunities to learn from difficult things that happen provide a new string to your bow, an ability to cancel people or learn for next time. So actually you've got to sort of resilience. But embrace some of these things and learn from them and make the most of them.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: It's the key word for me, resilience. Resilience, persistence, consistency, the three words. But certainly resilience will be the first one.
I'm very mindful. We've got Jonathan and a John on the call. So John, I mean I want to talk a little bit about your life actually because when you left kpmg, I would imagine your life was sort of, you had an idea of what it was going to look like and then you got married again and he became a dad again. You've got two grown up daughters who you idolize and then you've now got a third daughter, Harriet, who's eight years of age. Every time I look at a news website, you've taken on a new advisory role as well. You seem to have got a completely new lease of life. Can I just say for the benefit of our listeners, John looks about 42.
[00:18:18] Speaker C: That's very kind.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: So I put my glasses back on. Now, John, he doesn't.
Yeah, but that new lease of life as well, I mean, you seem to have. And actually, there's a sort of. There's a sort of synergy in a sense, with, you know, Jonathan to my left. Not because he's had a child, you know, relatively late in life, but just in the sense that he's got a new lease of life. His child is, you know, Alvarez and Marcel. But just from your perspective, you seem to be busier and happier than ever.
[00:18:45] Speaker C: Yeah, I think when I left, you know, let's call it my. My first chapter, my first career, I think, you know, I had visions of going fishing or playing golf and, you know, doing something, you know, slightly different, really, anyway, but that didn't happen. But it's coming back to what Jonathan said before, really, you know, how that change or a catalyst propels you in a different way, you know, so, you know, I met my new wife, Louise, who's like, you know, a bedrock. And there's been.
That's. That's the resilience. That's a bit that gets me through. And like you said, I've, you know, got. I'm blessed and blessed with three wonderful daughters. I've got two older ones, Becky and Hannah, that absolutely. Tell me what life is like and, you know, what you should say and what you don't say these days and everything else like that. And then I've got a little daughter called Harriet who's 8 years old, and, you know, she brings. She brings up the curiosity and everything else you'd expect of a young child.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: I can. I can actually. I'm looking at my phone now because I can actually reveal for the benefit of our growing audience that, you know, John's just mentioned about what to say and what not to say, and he gets advice from his Gen Z children.
So I said to John, looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. Probably gonna ask a few questions about this, that and the other. He sends it back all sweet. Is that what the kids say?
[00:20:06] Speaker C: Yeah, that's what they say. I thought that one would make you smile.
[00:20:11] Speaker B: We've got one more business to talk about before we finish. You're the chairman of Cortus Advisory Group as well, where you've been reunited with the CEO there, Nicola Merritt, who we both know well as well.
Cortis is doing well as well. Do you want to talk about your role there?
[00:20:29] Speaker C: Yeah. Cortis, you know, again, you feel blessed, don't you, as well? I certainly feel blessed that I've got an opportunity to work with Nicky again.
You know, how we drafted, you know, we're going to put over 63 people now, something of that. Six offices, five different disciplines and international alliances starting. Not the size of Alvarez and Marcel, but you know, we're taking baby steps and yeah, working with Nikki, who's tremendous, she, she holds up that sort of thing to me, which is.
It's her integrity she likes. She's not highly entrepreneur.
An incredible CEO now.
Yeah, it's just wonderful.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: No, I'm sure you're having lots of fun.
So we worked together for quite a long time over the years, didn't we? Who'd have thought when we were in our late 20s that we'd have been having a podcast sharing our experience all these years later?
What do you think has changed over that time and what do you think stayed the same, the deal making world?
[00:21:40] Speaker C: I think let's make it as a positive statement. I think what I certainly see is there's so many good advisors out there and not beyond, beyond their content and the advice they give, but how they give it, the integrity.
I think those standards for me are certainly the people I work with, like yourselves. Indeed. You know, that's still there and that's still critical. You know, you've got the advent now, technology in its various forms and you know, machine learning, the ability to get things done, which is great.
The thing I really struggle with in the deal world is, you know, there's so many meetings held virtually and people don't tend to go out and seem to visit factories anymore and do those type of things.
And I struggle with that bit of it because, you know, it's how can you get a good deal done and get that sense of behaviors and get that sense of culture when you're really doing it from an office or at home? I do struggle with that.
[00:22:46] Speaker A: You've spoken about this, Jonathan, haven't you, about when you did deals originally. You know, you'd have like throw a late nighter, you know, you'd shake hands, you might have a drink afterwards, you know, in the days when you'd have a drink. And now so much of these deals are concluded over. Zoom.
[00:23:02] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: I mean, the world's different now.
Like I say, the point I was making is a bit of an anti climax when a deal happens in the best of times after a load of work. But when it's just done on the phone and you just sign, you're not even sure you've signed it properly. And did you witness, witness it?
It's Just a different environment. But technology is making deals, is making deals more efficient to run, but it's still a really tough environment.
The deal doing market is tough. Working in corporate finance.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: We've got a question about technology to come after the break. But just one more question, John, before we go into the break.
You've worked with multiple award winning dealmakers, Jonathan Boyes for a number of years and now you're working with another award winning dealmaker in Nicola Merrick, who mentioned earlier, also a business cloud northern leader as well. What makes them exceptional in their field because you'll work with lots of advisors but what makes them exceptional and you know, above the others?
[00:24:01] Speaker C: Well, both have got the highest, highest degree of integrity.
They're both a bit cheeky, both bit like to break the rules, which is good because they like to push the boundaries.
Both of them look after their teams. The huge respect I've got for both Nicky and Jonathan in terms of looking after his people is absolutely second. And then I think for Jonathan there's definitely, there's something I can remember from 20 or 30 years ago which stood out to me with Jonathan, which was Jonathan would always give the right price and even if he lost a mandate, which wasn't that often, and you know, he would go in on what the value was and his valuation might not be as high as the next person, the other advisor, but it was always his honesty that impressed me with him.
[00:24:55] Speaker A: It's funny you mentioned Nicola Merritt there. I interviewed her on a roundtable as part of International Women's Day and she was telling this story about how they'd offered a job to a partner, a female partner. And then she phoned up two weeks later and she said, look Nicola, I'm gonna have to withdraw. She said, why is that then? Because I found out I'm pregnant and it's not fair on you. And she said, worst your effect of to hell, it's not you, you are. We wanted you before, we want you now more than ever.
So, you know, that's not an issue. And actually sometimes it needs female role models to actually say what's acceptable and what's not. And that was. That's when you talk about integrity and looking after your staff.
You've touched on it earlier as well, Jonathan, in terms of there aren't many female deal makers out there, you know, and that's why somebody like Nicola and other people is so important.
[00:25:46] Speaker B: No, I think Nicola's done a remarkable job at Cortus. She's done really well and full of admiration for what they're building.
[00:25:52] Speaker A: Okay, just time for a quick break. When we come back, Jonathan and I will be discussing our interview with John and answering your listener questions.
Welcome back to the second half of the Dealmaker Uncut podcast. We've just interviewed John Hughes, chairman of Cortus Advisory Group. What do you think, Jonathan?
[00:26:11] Speaker B: Well, John's very, very experienced chairman, non exec.
He's seen nearly as many deals as I have in his career.
But then it's really interesting to hear how he's developed his non executive roles and some of the things he thought about the various different experiences, the modern milkman Cortus and then going through the insolvency as well. So just really interesting to hear his perspective on lots of different businesses.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: Yeah. What I liked about John was the fact that he's worked in this industry for 40 plus years.
He's definitely got a young mindset as well and he's willing and desperate to learn new stuff as well. Sometimes you speak to people and they'll say they'll almost hark back to back when they were doing X, Y and Z, you know, the boars. And he's not that person as well. I mean having a, you know, having an eight year old daughter certainly keeps him on his toes as well. He's just, it's just you've got another role with Serena.
I thought the stuff that he did and he spoke about with Yodel as well was really interesting. It's a name that a lot of companies, a lot of people will be aware of as well.
But not everything that he's been involved in has been a success and that's true of life. Zedefy for example went into administration as well. And I think he talks about the fact that when he goes through stuff like that, that sort of keeps him awake at night as well. So yeah, really genuinely nice guy, John. And I think hopefully that came across in the interview. This next section is called Ask Jonathan is when listeners can ask Jonathan any question they want. We did a special episode in November after Rachel Reeves Autumn budget which ties into this question. Did Rachel Reeves budget settle the nerves of the market and moving on into 2026, which we are well into. Has that continued?
[00:27:57] Speaker B: Yeah. So we've seen obviously over the last few years how bad decision making by the Chancellor or by the Government can affect the.
Obviously the Liz Truss budget was a classic example.
I think at the moment stock markets are riding pretty high in the UK and particularly in the us so in terms of it certainly didn't cause the level of disruption that it might have done.
Did it actually settle down the market so that everything's now okay? I think the government's under the caution quite a few fronts and some of the decisions made by the Labour government around national insurance and such like some of the tax decisions they've made are still feeding through and not really helping.
I think the market generally is okay. I think I've said before, I think that the M and A market is picking up slowly.
I think there's lots of political shocks all over the place, but I think the UK has still got huge amounts of borrowing and there's still a heavy amount of spending, particularly in the benefits sector. And so I think we've not heard the last of debates about the budget for the next when the next one comes along. But in the meantime, like I say, as it affects business in M and A, I think people, people are just getting on with it at the moment.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: Very quick question from one of our regular listeners, Jonathan. Can you explain the difference between buy side and sell side?
[00:29:38] Speaker B: So all that really means is when a corporate finance advisor is selling a business, they're appointed by the shareholders of the business, sometimes the directors of the business to run a sale process and sell the business and that's sell side.
Sometimes we're asked to advise a buyer of a business. So a private equity house or a corporate that is making an acquisition and that's buy side. And on each side there's an army of advisors on the buy side and on the sell side there's lawyers, due diligence providers, there's a corporate finance advisors and various other people get involved on both sides. So that's just what the jargon is whether you're sell side or buy side.
[00:30:21] Speaker A: Okay, final question. I work as a tech journalist as well. Lots of businesses are using technology to run their businesses. Are you?
[00:30:29] Speaker B: Yeah. So we use some technology software called DealCloud as the primary way that we manage our business. DealCloud runs all the way through our business. It is a CRM system at one end of the spectrum, but it's also an execution platform. So all our origination activity we monitor on Deal close so we can see every meeting that people, people go out to meet new potential clients. All the pitches are on Deal Cloud, all the jobs are executed so the buyer's logs are executed on DealCloud. So I've got loads of information about our business.
Whenever we approach say an investor or a private equity house, their account is automatically updated. So every PE house I can immediately see what we've shown them and whether they bid and what they bid. So I get, as a leader of that business, I get so much information, I can see at a glance what our pipeline of work's like, how much we think our forward order book looks like.
So it's just incredibly valuable as a piece of technology to help me drive the business.
[00:31:44] Speaker A: Really interesting that that's all for this episode of the Dealmaker Uncut podcast, powered by Alvarez and Marcel Massive. Thank you to Jonathan Boyers.
[00:31:52] Speaker B: Thanks, Chris.
[00:31:53] Speaker A: Thank you very much. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast, tell your friends and family and follow us on social media. Thanks very much.
