Nick Brayshaw OBE, is a seasoned chairman with an extensive portfolio of private equity appointments and is the former chair of Kee Safety Group, the Dunedin and LDC-backed safety products manufacturer sold to Investcorp in November 2017. The deal, valued at £280 million, provided a return of 3x money and an IRR of 35%. He says: “I think the potential impact of Brexit is being overplayed. I don’t underestimate its importance for the UK economy and obviously, for the government and the country, but for mid-market industrial businesses, where I operate, most of these businesses are already trading internationally and are already dealing with multiple international specifications and approvals, as well as tariffs and export or import licensing.
All of that is business as usual and there is not very much about Brexit that would fundamentally change that, certainly not in the short to medium term.” He adds: “For mid-market industrial businesses the real issues around Brexit are more practical, in terms of thinking about how they might operate in a post-Brexit world. That means looking at how to organise themselves so that their European customers can buy from a European location and effectively trade with them as a European business rather than solely as a British business. That might mean having a European sales office or logistics, for example. And they are not just thinking about it, they are doing it.”
