Pell & Bales restructure under Group management buy-out
Howard Lake | 20 January 2011 | News
Telephone fundraising specialist Pell & Bales has been restructured as part of a management buy-out of its holding company The Panther Group Ltd. Brian Searle, the new Managing Director of Pell & Bales, said: “We intend to build on Pell & Bales’ reputation for thought leadership and innovative telephone fundraising.”
Pell & Bales is one of four companies that make up marketing and communications company The Panther Group which, founded in 2006 provides the not-for-profit and commercial sectors with contact centre solutions, data analysis and consultancy services.
Of these four companies, data business Supporter Insight will close and their services will be merged into Pell & Bales, and consulting business RXPerience will also close. The Panther Group said that there are no staff losses involved at either company. This will leave Pell & Bales and 185-seat contact centre business Spokenfor as the two operating subsidiaries of The Panther Group. Pell and Bales will continue to serve the not-for-profit sector and Spokenfor will serve the commercial market. There will be no changes to Spokenfor within the restructure.
The management team have invested personally in the company.
The Panther Group‘s head office in Kingston, Surrey, will close with redundancies, and its London office will make three redundancies. Its Brighton office will remain unchanged and the Bedford operation will see “limited change”. Overall, the Group will make 23 staff redundant.
Derwyn Jones, current CEO and one of the new owners of The Panther Group, explained that the rapid expansion of Pell & Bales in the past two years saw the company focus perhaps too much on volume growth in acquisition calling. He said: “We want P&B to work closer than ever with our clients and take a lead in developing new and profitable ways of telephone fundraising within the not-for-profit sector.”
Searle added that “our core activity will be innovative telephone fundraising, not just acquisition calling and upgrade campaigns. This market doesn’t stand still, charities’ needs change, as do fundraising methods and channels”. Pell & Bales would “create new ways of using the phone to assist our clients in their work” and the company would be “more creative in the calls we make”.
Jones explained the need for the restructuring, saying: “Significant investment in technology and the opening of the Canadian operation has left the company with increased costs and debts. In a bid to create financial agility for the future, The Panther Group has agreed to a Company Voluntary Arrangement with its creditors in order to reduce its financial obligation. This is an entirely voluntary arrangement entered into by Pell & Bales and its creditors, and our clients and creditors have been very supportive. All client business will continue uninterrupted.”
Derwyn Jones remains CEO and part owner of The Panther Group and Joanne Shenton remains Finance Director of the group. Brian Searle, previously Chief Operating Officer, is appointed Managing Director of Pell & Bales and Gavin Miller remains Managing Director of Spokenfor.
Karl Holweger, previously CEO of the Pell & Bales office in Canada, will leave the group to run the Canadian business independently. The Canadian operation is to be separated from the group and will no longer receive financial support from Pell & Bales. Holweger will continue a working relationship with Pell & Bales as a consultant.
www.pellandbales.co.uk
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.