Insider Media Limited

With retirement approaching, Liz Fogarty decided to sell the successful introduction and dating agency that she had set up seven years ago. Attractive Partners, based in Alcester, employs 18 staff and has a client base of around 6,000.

Fogarty says that coming to the decision was the easiest part of the process.

“I’m going to be 60 this year, and I knew the business needed to be taken in another direction,” she says. “I’m very proud of what I achieved with the business – starting it up from scratch and making it a success. But I was in such need of a holiday! Whenever I’d been away as the business owner, it was never a holiday. I would be thinking constantly about the business. The time came when I just needed less pressure in my life.”

With her decision to sell made, Fogarty employed a Bath-based business sales service advisor to assist her in finding a buyer and ensuring a successful sale.

“I needed quite a specific buyer”, says Fogarty. “I knew it would be much easier to find the kind of person that I wanted to run the business through an advisor. I wanted someone who would keep on my 18 staff, be willing to pay the rent rates that I pay and above all, keep the business based in the Midlands rather than taking it to London.”

She says that although the business generated a lot of interest, most of the potential buyers wanted to move the business down south.

“That’s where all the big players are in the dating industry,” says Fogarty. “But I really wanted to keep it anchored here.”

After several months spent searching for a buyer, the adviser presented Fogarty with Manex Leisure, an entrepreneurial company based in Dudley.

“The company was willing to do all the things I wanted from a buyer, and was willing to keep me on as well, which definitely sealed the deal”, says Fogarty.

She is confident that under the control of Manex Leisure, led by Benjamin and Christopher Charlton, the company will progress further.

“I think they’ll be able to take it to the next level”, she says. “I am still a director in the company until 30 September, when I will be employed as a consultant. I love this kind of business, and can’t imagine being involved in anything else.”