The king of closed circuit television is hoping for big things from his private jet operation. Goggles on, chocks away, says Neil Tague
The regulars at the top of the North West Rich 100 tend not to change much. Year after year, certain regulars - John Hargreaves of Matalan, Mr Blackpool Trevor Hemmings and of course Peel Holdings supremo John Whittaker - appear in the top ten. So does Mike Newton, the man behind AD Holdings.But, the rise and rise of Whittaker excepted, none of the above's estimated net worth has climbed as imperiously as Newton's in the last few years. From £3115m in 2003, to £3325m in 2004, to £3430m in 2005 and finally an estimated £3500m in September 2006, Newton's star has certainly been in the ascendant. Not bad for a Manchester University computer sciences graduate who blagged £36,000 to start his first business as a graduate in 1982.
It's a wet and windy day when I arrive at Liverpool's Business Aviation Centre to meet Newton. The plan is to have a look at the fleet, have a chat about AD Group and the recent upturn in private jet hire over lunch and then jump aboard for a short flight around the North West coast. Well, no one ever said this job was going to be easy. Newton spots my "I never thought I'd see the dayx85" look and smiles.
"More and more people are actually coming to realise that jet charter is within their means. It sounds clichxe9d but it's not as outlandish as people think. In the last month we've done 30 days of flying with just two aircraft in operation," he says.
AD Aviation, while still only accounting for between £32m and £33m of the group's £380m turnover, is rapidly on the rise. It may seem a far cry from the security market where Newton made his mark, but a gap in the market is a gap in the market to an entrepreneur of his calibre.
A qualified pilot himself, it's perhaps no surprise he was onto the idea quickly - he is the man who put his business in a dominant position in CCTV just as local councils, transport companies and retail chains stepped up security to the extent that Big Brother calls were wailed throughout the liberal media.
"We saw the gap in the market in 1998," he says. "The problem as I saw it was the provision of private aircraft in the North West was minimal. There were a small number of flights, so overheads were high and operators were having to charge a lot. It was out of reach.
"If someone took it on and got enough volume so that it would be economical then I'd figured we'd be in business. The goal since day one has been bringing aircraft charter to the business user."
The trigger for the recent upturn in activity has been the terror alerts at Heathrow that led to emergency measures being installed at UK airports. The massive queues, massive delays and customers disgruntled at having to stow valuable, potentially business-critical laptops and paperwork in the cargo hold due to a virtual ban on hand luggage can only be a good thing for companies like AD. "Outright fears of terrorism are not affecting the aviation market. It is more the impact of heightened security measures," says Newton
"The awareness of companies like us and what we do is definitely spreading. Even three years ago, 70 to 80 per cent of our clients were celebrities and very wealthy individuals. But it's getting to the stage where business travel is matching that."
The slick presentation prepared by Newton's marketing director demonstrates how businesses are being won round. With charter you can book at the last minute with no impact on cost, change the names of your travelling party - provided they've all been given the once-over by Special Branch - and fly directly into local airports without hanging around for connections.
You can roll up 15 minutes before you set off, rather than two hours. At the other end there's no need to clock watch to make sure you make a scheduled flight back. There's the peace of mind you get from keeping your laptop with you and complete confidentiality - if you're flying to a trade event, who's to say the bloke peering over your shoulder on a commercial flight isn't working for a rival?
Although confidentiality is a big word at AD, companies happy to talk about their use of the jets include high-class jeweller David M Robinson, whose director John Robinson first tried AD after spotting an advert in Insider, and Deloitte, which now regularly ferries over teams for meetings in Paris.
The early years of AD Aviation coincided with the heady days of the late 1990s technology boom. A tidy fit for a company with myriad contacts in the world of technology through the AD Group's various tentacles.
Dedicated Micros (DM) is where it all started for Newton. It is a company acknowledged as being at the forefront of CCTV for almost 25 years. As the industry and its markets have expanded, DM has been at the forefront, second guessing in which direction the market will head.
Newton says there's no big secret; it's simply a case of knowing the technology and understanding what can be done and, crucially, what is commercially realistic. By the time the competition catch up, he's onto the next generation. It's a philosophy that sits across the whole AD Group:
"We're pioneers in our industry. When we innovate it is genuine innovation, not simply adding bells and whistles but adding something genuinely new," he says.
Like most technologies, CCTV has advanced enormously in the last 25 years. The market advantage of a company that has been able to get to the market first with products in the data storage revolution - able to offer accessible digital systems rather than telling businesses they'll need stacks of videos cluttering their offices - is obvious.
Newton, the man credited with inventing the first commercially viable CCTV video multilplexer, is now ranked number one globally for multi-channel digital video recorders. More than seven million images, every second of every day, are recorded and viewed using DM equipment, in some impressive locations - major governments and airport operators use Newton's equipment.
DM has east and west coast offices in the US, along with offices in Germany, France, Australia, Singapore and Dubai. Little wonder that Newton casually remarks: "When we started the aviation business, it was because our own travel requirements were growing all the time as much as anything."
AD Aerospace, launched in 1995, works in the burgeoning area of aircraft security. It designs and manufactures the FlightVu product range, which encompasses security, safety and entertainment systems. Later add-ons allow monitoring of cockpit doors and luggage holds - a big plus in the post-9/11 era.
Back on the ground, AD Network Video's TransVu range brings sophisticated CCTV technology to public transport, with converts including US school buses and the Dutch state's trains. Typically, AD has looked to the next stage and won recognition at the 2006 Security Industry Innovation Awards for TransVu Media, a variant that allows advertising messages and transport information updates to be broadcast via the technology in place.
In 2005 Newton hit the acquisition trail. In May he picked up ChipWrights, a Massachusetts-based semiconductor company that turns over $170m a year, integrating ChipWrights technology into the latest AD products. Later AD acquired the whole share capital of Hampshire-based D-Tec, a world leader in smoke detection systems.
The building of AD's business is an object lesson in complementary business wins. If you're flying, AD systems could be watching for fire in the terminal, tracking your progress through to the passenger gate via video servers, watching you in the cabin and making sure the plane's undercarriage is deployed correctly and that groundside vehicles are positioned correctly.
It is a large number of plates to be spinning and is clearly paying off - AD's group turnover has gone from £3930,000 in 1998 to over £380m, with DM being integrated into the group in 2001. So how does the man at the helm relax?
Although Newton's outwardly very calm and as polite as anyone I've met all year, it's questionable whether he ever does relax. As well as a bit of flying, he is a passionate participant in endurance motor racing, sponsorship of which also provides the company with some handy exposure. As you'd expect, he's not in it for larks.
After some impressive performances in UK competitions, Newton and the rest of the AD team headed for Le Mans. In 2004 they broke the endurance record for their make of car, before going one better in 2005 when they became the first British team to win the LMP2 class - a feat they equalled in 2005.
"We were a little lucky with the first win after a battle of attrition but this year's was more than deserved," grins Newton. "We were up there all the way. Now we'll be going all out for three in a row."
Is he tempted to expand his aviation business beyond the North West? There's plenty of unfinished business here, he says. "It's a huge market here in the North West. It has the biggest financial sector outside London and we'll conquer this market before looking elsewhere. We'll be getting our third plane back from its upgrade soon, so we'll be fully up to speed. And we'll continue to operate mostly from Liverpool. Although we can fly from anywhere to anywhere within Europe, Liverpool's accessible and the take-off slots are easier to get, especially in the morning."
And with that, I'm summoned to the plane. The ascent, flight and landing are as smooth and professional as you'd expect from a business whose watchword is reliability. Keep a close eye on AD Holdings - on behalf of many others, they're keeping one on you.
Also in: October 2006
-
All or Nothing - Blackpool's big gamble
Michael Taylor travels to Blackpool to meet the men with the plan for a Las Vegas-style casino in the resort
-
Crisis in the countryside
There is more to the rural economy than farms and Bed and Breakfasts, but all businesses are battling under the weight of regulation, poor infrastructure and financial worries. Lisa Miles calls for wider support of the region's rural businesses