MidasTouch Solutions Limited

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Managing Director – Paul Weeks, Chartered Accountant

Paul is an experienced and truly commercial professional as demonstrated by his many achievements. He is pragmatic, positive and affable and has a wide knowledge of businesses from a variety of sectors and of differing size.

Paul qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1985, having completed his training with the well respected Price Bailey; he entered the commercial world in 1986, joining Boftex, a growing textile import company whom he had previously serviced as a client.

During his time at Boftex Paul oversaw the management buyout of the business which included operations in Hong Kong and Germany and arranged bank facilities with a total value of £5m. The facilities included import and export facilities as well as an £0.5m overdraft. The turnover had grown from £4m to £12m during Paul’s period of employment.

Next Paul made his first move into the Pharmaceutical sector when he was appointed as Financial Controller of a fledgling Shire Pharmaceuticals. Now a multi-billion £ company at Paul’s time of joining in 1991 they had revenues of just £11m. As well as responsibility for the day to day management of the accounting function, Paul was also responsible for the management of the warehouse and stock procurement.

Between 1993 and 1995 Paul worked for a retail travel organisation with 31 retail sites, a business travel centre and a telephone sales operation.

1995 saw Paul join an altogether larger organisation, Cleanaway. This was a JV company owned by GKN /Brambles with revenues exceeding £500m. The activities included the operation of waste disposal sites, fleets of collection vehicles and high temperature incineration. Paul was initially employed as Commercial Manager for the disposal division and he was responsible for the negotiation of a number of important and high profile transactions including a contract for power generation from landfill gas and a buyout of a royalty agreement with the landowner. He was also responsible for a couple of small acquisitions.

To give Paul an understanding of all aspects of Cleanaway’s business he was moved into the Collection division which operated commercial and domestic waste fleets. He help develop key performance indicators for this division and completed the acquisition of 4 ‘’tuck in’’ businesses.

Paul was then given the role of Corporate Development Manager. This role required the identification of larger and more strategic acquisitions. Paul was actively involved in the acquisition of a £200m turnover German recycling operation.

Further diversity of experience was then gained with a short term contract with First National Tricity Finance, a provider of finance solutions to retailers such as Comet and World of Leather and of media during a contract to cover a period of maternity with Carlton Video who included Thunderbirds within their portfolio.

Towards the end of his contract with Carlton in 2001 Paul received a call from his ex-Managing Director from Cleanaway offering an opportunity to join an entrepreneurial organisation that held outsource contracts with local authorities. The Company Accord had recently de-merged from John Doyle, a construction group and had a very talented Chairman, Stelio Stephanou. The turnover at the time was £70m. When Paul helped complete the sale of the Company to 3i/Enterprise 6 years later the revenue had grown to nearly £300m. The multiple on exit was a very impressive 22x EBIT.

Paul had joined Accord to develop the internal reporting, budgeting and forecasting processes. Having completed this and having actively assisted in developing the Group Office support team Paul moved into a Corporate Finance role and completed 2 acquisitions and the disposal of 2 businesses identified as non-core.

Following the disposal Paul gained experience with a small Corporate Finance Boutique before taking up the role of Financial Director with Masters Pharmaceuticals Limited, quickly to become CFO of the Masters Group formed of Companies based in the UK, USA, El Salvador, Singapore and Brazil. A specialist pharmaceutical distributor with a turnover approaching £17m and plans to grow to £42m within 4 years, Masters were looking for investment and with Paul’s expert assistance an investment of £2.65m was made by Albion Ventures in June 2010.

Paul has established Midas Touch Solutions and is now looking to provide his expertise to Companies looking to grow. He is focused on Companies turning over between £1m - £15m.