FROM DECEMBER 2015'S RECRUITER MAGAZINE

“We see this as the coming of age, the maturing of the group. We didn’t like HCIG because we don’t see ourselves as an investment company, we see ourselves as a recruitment business; we wanted to move away from 

the legacy investment model to a ‘we are a growing specialist recruitment group’. We wanted to signify the next phase of our development,” says the ebullient Cook, speaking to Recruiter from the company’s seventh floor boardroom in the City. 

The journey has not been easy, but a year after Cook led a management buyout (MBO) from HCIG, the indications are that nGAGE, whose specialist brands include social care recruiter Caritas, and health, social care, charity and public sector specialist Eden Brown, is putting the past behind it and moving on.   

According to Cook, September saw the group’s best results ever. Although he won’t provide a company-by-company breakdown, a clearly delighted Cook says that in the first half of the year both EBITDA [earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation] and gross profit were up 14% on H1 in 2014.

The number of employees has also shot up from 350 when Cook took over as CEO in 2013 to what he expects will be “north of 600” by the end of the year. In the past 18 months, the group’s incubator division has invested in five recruitment start-ups. “All our start-ups are making money. I am very proud of that,” says Cook.

Moving the model

Cook is quite open in admitting that moving on from HCIG also means departing from the Hamilton Bradshaw business model championed by James Caan. “We are moving this business from this hugely entrepreneurial world, the James Caan world, to a slightly more [than usual] entrepreneurial corporate position. This is the professionalisation, the growing up of what was a successful business but at times a little random. It was ‘make £1 is good, where you make that £1 is irrelevant’.”

By way of contrast, Cook continues, “I believe in a very focused specialist businesses driving into their sectors rather than, if you like, spreading across many sectors. nGAGE is a pure play specialist and it won’t be anything else, and within that we go to market with specialist brands.” By way of example, he adds: “We will never be nGAGE Caritas.

“I have added the corporate gloss to the model, and I think that allows us to scale up in a way that is better governed.”

Asked whether nGAGE is now competing with Hamilton Bradshaw and Caan, Cook responds: “No, not really, we are moving into a slightly different phase of our growing up,” pointing to the doubling of earnings to £13m-£14m. 

Slightly later, when asked about Caan’s incubator division Recruitment Entrepreneur, Cook says: “I don’t have a view on what James is doing; we have moved on, we are in the next phase.”

While clearly keen to leave the past behind, Cook recognises that although Caan exited the business a year ago, he leaves an important legacy. “James is just a fantastic entrepreneur, and people are very excited to own their own boat and sail it in an appropriate direction. James understands people and the legacy is the entrepreneurial spirit.”  

Building by incentives

Cook says he has carried this on in the way that the executives within the group’s constituent businesses are incentivised. He points to the MBO, which resulted in six people making “north of £1m, and others who made significant upsides”, and to longer-term incentives: “If they build their businesses over the next three to five years, there are other value creation points at which people can get some benefit from their efforts.”

That said, Cook explains “the current plan is to sell the group as a whole”. As to his position, he appears in no doubt. “I am here for the next 10 years,” he says. 

The transformation of the company since last year’s MBO should hardly come as a surprise following Cook’s decision to leave Hamilton Bradshaw. “I had a hankering to be captain of my own smaller boat. The intention was always to do something with the asset that was formerly HCIG,” says Cook, though he adds “it was not clear at the time whether to sell it, float it, or do a management buyout”. In the end, the decision was taken to go with private equity firm Graphite Capital.

With expectations of “one or two reasonably significant acquisitions in the next 12 months”, Graphite Capital gives nGAGE “more firepower” when it comes to future acquisitions, explains Cook. “To turn the dial more, you have to invest more.” To date Graphite “are absolutely on the money”, he says, before adding “but then we are hitting our numbers”. 

After more than two decades at white-collar recruiter Hays, where he rose from trainee to managing director UK & Ireland, among other senior roles, Cook is clearly relishing his role in the top job. “Honestly, I love it,” he says. While he enjoyed his time at Hays, he says that for the last two and a half years, he has “genuinely skipped to work”. It’s clearly been an exciting time. “The metaphor I used is I jumped off a cliff, and I decided to pack my parachute on the way down, and I joined James Caan.”

Cook says he has learned a lot since the MBO, particularly about the world of private equity finance that previously he says he didn’t even know existed. Not that it has all been plain sailing. Asked what was the most difficult decision he has had to take, he quickly identifies the merger of Eden Brown and Synergy that completed this autumn, a move he describes as “a ballsy call”. 

As Cook explains the rationale: “They were very similar businesses around the public sector, and we thought they would be a stronger player as a joint merged entity.” Cook says he was “very sensitive to the staff and their loyalties to their existing brands” and spent “a significant portion of a month” personally in meetings, and “working out where people’s careers were going” and “in creating the vision and aligning people behind it”. 

Cook says he is “thrilled” that through the whole process, only four people left the business. “It is hard work; you have to get down in the trenches,” he admits.

Cook is content with the outcome. “With 250 staff, it looks a lot stronger as an entity. Customers are broadly happy, we are starting to see some economies, and nobody was made redundant.”

The merger of Alpha Tec and Proactive to form Proactive Technical Recruitment, which was completed on 

1 October, has created a 70-strong entity that puts it in the top five recruiters in that sector. There are currently no plans for further mergers, he says. 

Sustainable future

As to the future, Cook says he “fully intends to have north of 1,000 staff in the next three to five years. Our ambition is to become a significant recruitment player in the UK. The end game is to have market leadership in our chosen sectors”. That means creating “a much more sustainable and scalable model”. 

“It’s about helping companies to burst through the 30-40 consultants barrier to 50-60… to help them transition from ‘small co’ to ‘mid co’, and build their management structures so they can grow.”

Cook points to the calibre and experience of three key members of the group’s senior management: group chief financial officer Andrew Burchall, group chief operating officer Adam Herron and group chief information officer Tim Styles. “The message behind the team is scale,” he says. 

Cook says his role and that of the senior management team is to facilitate others to succeed. “We provide them with the tools so they have more time to focus on placing people,” he says, referring to nGAGE’s central platform of services such as back office, IT and technical support, and investment in staff training and development. 

Asked about his own leadership style, Cook says “is about enabling, it is not about managing”. Whether dealing with a consultant or a managing director, he explains, the approach is the same: “How can we help you grow your business? That is my strapline. That is how we talk at meetings.”

And part of that enabling includes teaching staff about brand, and helping them understand that “brand and the logo are the polish, and it’s the culture and the values that are the important piece,” Cook continues.  

“Our singular brand essence is to do less, better. I want our business to focus on looking after its core customers, delivering to them and being mindful of the impact of not delivering on those core promises.” 

If that message gets through, then far from simply rewriting history this is one rebranding that could be the launch pad for a recruitment company creating its very own. 

nGAGE

• Formerly known as Human Capital Investment Group until rebranded as nGAGE in October 2015

• Formerly part of Hamilton Bradshaw until management buyout completed in December 2014

• Specialist companies covering: the built environment, engineering, health and social, public sector and not-for-profit, and professional and financial services

Main brands

▶ Eden Brown Synergy

▶ Resourcing Group

▶ Caritas

▶ Proactive Technical Recruitment

▶ ewi

▶ Eden Brown Built Environment

Number of consultants: 600

• 14% rise in gross profit and EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and earnings) compared with H1 of 2014  

• 24% increase in net fee income between H1 2013 and H1 2014

Tim Cook

• 2013-present Group chief executive, nGAGE Specialist Recruitment (formally Human Capital Investment Group [HCIG])

• 2010-13 Group head of digital and innovation, Hays

• 2008-10 Managing director, Hays UK & Ireland

• 2006-08 Managing director, Hays Construction & Property

• 1987-2006 Various roles from recruitment consultant to director level, Hays

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