EDITOR’S COMMENT Beware the quiet ones, because often it is those that shout and peacock the least and quietly get on with their business that will tiptoe up and steal your lunch before you have a chance to react.
Just look at Rapleys.
Okay, they are a long way behind some of the big agents that we’ve seen reporting this week, but here is a specialist firm of advisers focused on growing the company in a balanced and, dare I say it, more thoughtful way.
Since the summer of 2022, Rapleys has bought five businesses – Ashton Rose, Bluebrick Building Consultancy, CSJ Planning, S106 Affordable Housing, and most recently, Mellersh & Harding. And as managing partner Justin Tuckwell tells us in this week’s EG Interview, there are plenty more to come before the year is out.
The acquisitions have filled gaps in the firm’s service offer and helped it deliver record turnover, growing from £11.7m in 2021 to £14.8m in its most recently filed accounts for the year ended 30 March 2023. Profit over that period has grown from £4.3m to £5.2m.
Unless you’ve been watching, you might not have seen Rapleys strengthening its offer. It hasn’t appointed any advisers to help it grow and it hasn’t been focused on bottom or top-line figures. The leadership, somewhat refreshingly, has focused on people and culture and care. And it seems to be paying off.
“You have a discussion with these people and it’s all about the value of the business, the EBITDA and the world of selling businesses,” Tuckwell tells EG. “We have yet to do a deal with one of those. We don’t tend to like that. Normally those businesses on the market through an agent are just there to sell for financial gain. That doesn’t work for us.
“When people are approaching us and we think they are the right type of people, the right culture, and the right ethos – that they are a Rapleys business before they’ve even joined us – the main boxes are ticked,” he adds, outlining what does work.
There’s humility in Tuckwell’s approach too and an understanding that people matter most in business, not the EBITDA and, often, not the leadership team.
“The value of that [acquired] business is not the main guys,” he says. “Ultimately, the main guys are going to disappear. It’s about that next tier down, who are going to drive the business forward.”
It’s an excellent leadership lesson to take away from the interview. And one that I see more and more leaders in our sector taking hold of.
We all know that money talks, that deals are sexy and that income matters, but none of that actually matters if you can’t motivate your people to want to deliver. To care about what they do.
The world is changing. Technological advances, AI in particular, will sooner or later be able to do those deals for you – and write the stories and research reports that tell you all about them. But what they won’t be able to do is bring heart and soul and culture to a place. And sooner or later it is those things which will be the value that is brought to deals and businesses and places alike.
So, as we hear that the floodgates holding the wall of capital back from our sector are about to open and as we prepare for a new dawn in development with fresh changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, think about the role that people, culture, heart and care will have in making sure that we deliver on what the real estate sector really can do. The right investments, for the right reasons and development that provides a place and space for everyone.
Motivation will matter most if we are to seize on these opportunities ahead of us. What that motivation will be is up to you.
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