November 2007
Real Business – I'll have what Grant Bovey is having
It's hard to take Grant Bovey seriously. Here is a man who left his wife to marry the marigold-wearing Perfect Housewife Anthea Turner, posed in OK! Magazine on his wedding day and was punched in the face on national TV by funny man Ricky Gervais. But that's just his public image.
We're here to meet the real Grant Bovey the determined, straight-talking entrepreneur behind Imagine Homes, the buy-to-let property company that is set to pull in sales of £190m and profits of £5.2m next year.
Bovey, the son of a union official father and seamstress mother, grew up craving the entrepreneurial lifestyle: "When I was 14, my friends used to ask me what I was going to do when I left school. I would always reply that I wanted to be an entrepreneur."
He was brought up in a semi-detached house in Nottingham, had what he calls an "ordinary" childhood and an "unspectacular" education and then started selling ladies' fashion in a market stall with his sister.
"I used to frighten my Dad to death with my crazy ideas. He would try to talk me out of everything, whereas my mother would do the absolute opposite. She was the big risk taker and I most definitely take after her".
Yes, Bovey is a risk taker, but he's also prepared to put his hand up when he's made a bad decision. "Nobody's perfect. There's no such thing as Entrepreneurs' School you have to learn through trial and error," he says. "I enjoy being in control of my own destiny and living by the sword. I've only ever spent two years working for someone else; I'm the type of person who would hate to have a business partner. I'm not very good at tolerating other people's mistakes but I'm happy to take my own on the chin".
He's run a variety of businesses since leaving school, two of which crumbled and left him owing creditors money. His most "serious" business before setting up Imagine Homes was Watershed Pictures, a television production company that he ran for more than ten years. "We made classics such as A Day at the Zoo with Phillip Schofield," he chuckles. "I eventually sold that company and made a million. I did quite nicely out of that. He set up Imagine Homes in September 2003, without a shred of knowledge about the property sector. "I was by no means an expert but in many ways that was a strength. I wasn't blinkered."
He saw an opportunity to buy 22 apartments in a development called Kew Riverside but realised he'd have to come up with a clever way of marketing the properties if he was going to go head to head against the big boys.
"I was never stupid enough to think I could take on the property giants single-handedly. But it did occur to me that the established players were just churning out the same old formula; they were all earning a lot of money without trying very hard. The whole industry had become very complacent. I'm not used to that. My background is in media, which is fiercely competitive. If you don't think on your feet, you'll be out of a job."
So he sat down and did a bit of "reverse engineering". I thought about all the things that would make me invest in a buy-to-let property: I'd want someone to spend a lot of time researching the location for me, and I'd want them to find the tenants, check their credentials and collect the rent. And it would be an added bonus if they could furnish the apartment, arrange the mortgage and guarantee the rental yield for two years while they were at it." That formed the backbone of Bovey's business plan. He describes the creative process as the "easybit". Finding funding was the tough part, especially for a man armed with absolutely no experience in the sector and a business model that promises to make money only after the two-year "rental guarantee" period is up. "Three of the banks I approached couldn't care less about Imagine Homes," he recalls. "They just wanted to know about my charity boxing match with Ricky Gervais [more on that later]. They clearly had no intention of lending me any money they just thought it would be entertaining to spend an hour chatting to me".
Imagine that
Bovey eventually secured around £12m in debt financing from HBOS the sixth bank he spoke to. "I met a lady called Susan Geddes who headed up HBOS's property team. I saw her eyes light up. Finally, here was somebody who got what I was trying to do." Bovey used the money along with £1m from his own wallet to buy the apartments in Kew Riverside and sold them all just eight weeks later.
At the time, he was running the business out of his bedroom with his long-standing PA, Vicki Bullock. The business skyrocketed, and within a year he moved to a 10,000 sq ft office a sleek, imposing glass building overlooking Farnborough airport. Today, he has 140 employees on the payroll.
"I know what type of people to employ and when to employ them," he says with conviction. "I absolutely hate mediocrity. So many entrepreneurs fall into the trap of hiring people because they are cheap. I never do that. I want the best FD, the best auditors, the best PR company. And I'll pay for it. I don't want to be average at anything."
He's also learnt the art of delegation: "I have to spend my time wisely these days. There's no point in me doing something all morning that I can pay someone else £30k a year to do." Bovey's plans for the business are big and, typically, bold. He's already one of the biggest buyers of residential property in the country but he wants to be turning over £1bn in five years: "Only then will I feel the company is a success." His dream is to export the business model to other countries. "The one question I always get asked when I'm sitting in front of analysts and investors is, what happens if the UK property market plummets?'. They have a point. I need to spread the risk."
The £37.5m equity and debt investment package that Bovey received from HBOS in September this year (in return for a 19 per cent stake) will give him the financial muscle to grow the business. "I'm not going to take on the world overnight but I'm certainly going to dip my toes in the water and see what happens," he says. "The business has so much potential. Everything we buy, we sell. The only thing that's ever held me back is a lack of funds.
He'll also be opening a 13,000 sq ft showroom in central London where prospective purchasers can view his properties remotely via high-tech gadgetry. "The building used to be a TVR showroom on the Hogarth roundabout on the A4," he says. "Half a million people drive past it every day. I noticed it was empty so I decided to buy it. I think it's going to make a fantastic buy-to-let mega showroom'."
The cult of celebrity
Bovey has clearly got his chutzpah back after years of being dragged through the tabloids. "I went through a very strange time when Anthea and I got together," he reminisces, stealing a glance at the framed photograph of her on his desk. "By my own admission, we made some terrible decisions. We got married in a blaze of negative publicity. "That had an impact on Anthea's profile, but it also had an impact on mine. I was a businessman and I became this I'm not even sure what I became. Put it this way: the press weren't particularly kind to me."
Bovey was asked to appear in The fight, a charity duel with Ricky Gervais shown on BBC2, in 2002. Starring in a celebrity punch-up in front of millions of viewers might not be everyone's idea of a good time but Bovey knew it just might save his reputation. "When you're in an editing suite, it's easy to cast somebody as a fool. But the BBC solemnly swore not to stitch me up. I'd always been very athletic, so the thought of spending six weeks with a world-class boxing trainer was pretty appealing."
Bovey was defeated by The Office star after three hard-fought rounds. But the show instantly improved his public rating. The fight became a piece of iconic television. Cabbies still quiz him about the match, even five years on. "It's never going to go away!" he laughs. "But it absolutely saved my image. Our marriage was portrayed as farcical; we were a laughing stock and it's taken us a long time to climb out of that. I finally have my own identity back. I'm Grant Bovey, the businessman, not Grant Bovey, Anthea Turner's deadbeat husband. I'd like to think I've won people's respect within the industry."
You'd better believe it. Imagine Homes is now worth a whopping £150m and Bovey is planning on floating the business on the London Stock Exchange in 2009. "I'm not the type of person to lie awake at night," he says. "Frankly, that's a blessing. I've made decisions to spend £150m on a block of flats. If I was a worrier, I wouldn't sleep a wink."
Does he think his late mother would be proud of the entrepreneurial risks he has taken? He furrows his brow. "I hope so, yes," he says, his voice trembling slightly. "I have a great life. It's one I could have only dreamed about when I was growing up in Nottingham.