By October 2013, management had concluded that a sale to the employees was the way to go. The company enlisted the help of the Royal Bank of Scotland to make the plan feasible. For a sale to staff, Flicos points out, “You need more money than you can find between yourselves, so you do need the support of a bank, and banks are generally quite reluctant to lend. RBS were pretty quick out of the blocks once we went round, and they said yeah, we can do that, which was a pleasant surprise. They are trusting that we’ve got a successful business; it’s a great endorsement really.”
Once the plan was in place, Team management held a lengthy session with the staff back to explain their vision for the process and how they thought it would work. Questions like “What’s it going to cost?” and “Could I lose my investment?” were addressed, and in the end, over 80% of the staff chose to participate.
“People have invested knowing that investments can go down but also they’ve seen the company grow and they know that they want to be here long term,” Flicos says; “And this isn’t like a day trading investment. I don’t think anyone participating in equity in a private company sees it as a day trading opportunity; it’s a long term investment.”
“To be fair,” he continues, “some of the early investors in Team have seen their initial investment appreciate very well, so they were keen to continue their investment. And people were keen because they could see the upside and by investing it meant that we were in control of our destiny. We didn’t have to worry about a 40% shareholder coming in with a different agenda.”
“We’ve got more people now with more skin in the game, and I think that’s going to be a positive message for our clients. It’s a very competitive market we’re in, and one of our differentiators is that we are a people-oriented culture. It’s a people-to-people business, and our relationships matter.” Team is hiring for a number of positions, and Flicos anticipates that the opportunity to have equity will give the company an edge in recruiting.
In addition to the Occoris, a dry powder inhaler designed for use with carrier-free formulations, Team has several other OINDP-related projects underway, and Flicos says that he hope to have some announcements to make later in the year, ahead of RDD Asia.
