As I write this I’m watching a live webcam feed of Sidmouth’s Port Royal on the Visit Sidmouth website…Wish I was there…bathed in autumn sunshine, the sea lapping gently on the sand, late season tourists walking the seafront (a tad briskly, I feel, considering it’s a balmy 16C there…slow down everyone)…and, just a minute….who’s that? Is it…surely not…Guy Hands! It can’t be…he’s a Channel Islands tax exile and anyway is too tied up running Terra Firma to spare time for a stroll on the promenade (sorry, Sidmouth…Esplanade). No, on closer inspection, it’s definitely not him (sorry, Guy, a clear case of mistaken identity, you must have a döppelganger, should have gone to SpecSavers…ahem…). But it so easily could have been…because, if the rumourmongers have got it right, his company is about to announce it has become the proud owner of a lovely piece of local real estate – Sidmouth Garden Centre.
If, as has been expected since the deal was strongly tipped at SOLEX in July, Sidmouth becomes what would be the Wyevale group’s 151st centre, Mr Hands and his team would have good reasons to become further acquainted with the resort’s many charms (which include a donkey sanctuary, in case you’re interested).
In the meantime, a seafront stroll would be the perfect opportunity to contemplate the next set of challenges facing Terra Firma – how to meet its growth aspirations for Wyevale Garden Centres in line with an exit strategy.
Once group turnover has broken through the £300 million barrier, with pbt showing potential, the business becomes seriously attractive to appropriate investors while handing Terra Firma a handsome premium on the £276m it paid in March 2012.
Pushing turnover would have been easier if Tesco had played ball over Dobbies, but the supermarket giant indicated this week that its portfolio review was now complete, without making any mention of divestment.
So we would not be surprised to learn that the tempo of Wyevale GCs’ trawl of the market for its next acquisitions had quickened as it attempts to meet Terra Firma’s preferred timetable, which surely means an exit sooner rather than later while the garden market is visibly buoyant in a relatively stagnant retail scene.
Where will it look? You’ll already know if you are in the line of sight. But we hear that another well-respected centre in the south of England has had a loud knock on the door.
Just now, though, watch out for Wyevale transport on the A3052 and the sound of hammer and nails as the sign ‘Sidmouth…a Wyevale Garden Centre’ marks the spot for Guy Hands’s next long week-end.
