Investor looks for a sunny future on home front

THE snow in Yorkshire came as a cold wake-up call for Ian Townsend after spending the best part of the last year in the Bahamas.

The suntanned former head of Sheffield-based The Medical House has been "chilling out" at his house on the Caribbean island and working out his next business move. He briefly returned to his home in Harrogate just as the weather turned.

Although a life as a tax exile is tempting for a multi-millionaire, particularly in the Caribbean, Mr Townsend insists it's not for him.

"It's very tempting to stay out there but I didn't want to live there full-time because I miss friends and family in the UK. The tax exile life is not for me," he said. "However, while I was there I met a lot of wealthy people and it was interesting to see how they made their money. It was always through raw materials, oil and gas – things that perform well whatever the economic climate."

Former AIM-listed Medical House, which was sold to Consort Medical last November, specialises in the development and supply of delivery systems for injectable drugs.

Having made in excess of 5.6m from the sale, Mr Townsend, 55, said he's not interested in setting up a new company from scratch. Instead, he wants to invest between 5m to 10m in businesses, particularly those in the medical or energy sectors.

"I'm getting too old to start a new company," he said. "If you take a medical device, by the time you have started working on the product and got it to market, you are talking about a five to 10-year project.

"I'm looking to invest in a whole range of businesses. It's interesting to hear what other people are doing and the countries they favour, like Brazil, Canada and Australia, which are rich in their own natural resources and which have not had the same banking crisis that the UK and US experienced."

Closer to home, Mr Townsend said he has already invested about 20 per cent of the money in medical technology companies as well as Sky shopping channel High Street TV, in which Yorkshire businessman Gordon Black is also an investor.

"It's a completely new area for me to be involved in but it's very exciting," he said.

He added: "Because of my background in the medical sector, people do send me proposals to look at and I am looking at a couple of medical products from Yorkshire but they are at an early stage of development."

However, he is looking to spread much of his money across overseas investments due to the volatility of the UK economy.

"It's a very uncertain world we're living in at the moment,"

he said. "The UK is going to struggle for some time.

"Other countries are performing well because they don't have the baggage that the UK has. I also want to invest in more than just an idea. It needs to be well progressed but also something we have bring some help and expertise to as well as finance."

Mr Townsend said he intends to make investments where he could also make a difference to the company. "I want to make money and I also want to have enjoyment along the way," he said. "I invest in people who I have got great respect for and enjoy their copany. I wouldn't invest in a sector or business where it's only a question of making money. I want something that is going to stimulate my mind as well.

"That's the one thing I have missed since the disposal of Medical House. I don't have the same challenges on a day-to-day basis."

He stands by his decision to sell the Medical House last year but admits it still feels strange to not have a day job any more.

"With the way the economy has gone, being a small independent medical company was going to get tougher," he said.

"It was the best thing for the business to be part of a bigger group, the best thing for the staff involved and for the shareholders "However, I have always had a plan and a goal and now everything is very much a blank sheet of paper."

Medical House began life in 1988 as Eurocut, with an initial investment of 100,000.

Originally the company supplied cutting tools for the defence industry, serving clients such as British Aerospace and Rolls-Royce, but it later switched into supplying the medical market, which Mr Townsend described as "recession-proof", pointing out that no-one would delay an operation that would improve their life if they could afford it.

The firm's acquisition of Medecal, a Leeds-based company that operated a website called Healthworks, in 2000, led to a 5m stock market listing and a new era of growth. Consort delisted The Medical House after the acquisition as part of plans to make 500,000 annual cost savings.

Ian Townsend

Factfile

Ian Townsend's career has armed him with a set of credentials which mark him out an experienced entrepreneur.

He qualified as an accountant and following a stint at KPMG in the Bahamas he set up his own accountancy firm. After selling the practice, he invested in a number of ventures and went on to lead Sheffield United in the late Nineties. Speaking to the Yorkshire Post in 2000, he said: "There are parts of running a football club that I miss but other parts that, in fairness, I wouldn't ever want to visit again."