Communication specialist The Baird Group has changed its name to the Bailie Group, has moved into new headquarters in Leeds, and is now on acquisition hunt to help it achieve a £20m increase in turnover by the end of 2021.
The group has forecast revenues of £45m in 2020, with aims of rising to £65m turnover and achieving £5m profit by the end of the following year.
Bailie Group - which began life in Belfast in 1862 – currently comprises CDS, CDS Defence and Security, Newspress and Loop and handles large-format digital print at its Aylesbury site. It is now looking to add organisations with cyber security, artificial intelligence, data consultancy, edtech, SaaS, creative communications or content creation specialisms to complement its existing print and digital strengths.
“When I took over the Group in 2010, turnover was £25m and we employed 200 people,” said Group CEO Fergus Bailie. “Now, we stand at circa £45m and have 340 colleagues - with 20 joining us in the last three months alone. Continued investment in our workforce, internal growth projects and corporate acquisitions - of people and property - is part of a three-year plan to build a highly principled £65m business, by the end of 2021.
“We have naturally been cautious during Covid, as we’d be wrong to suggest we haven’t been affected. But we’ve always focused on the sustainable expansion of our organisation, so our position remains strong and our three-year plan on track.”
Growth via acquisition is nothing new for the company. In 1977, chairman Roy Bailie led the management buy-out of W&G Baird - a then 115-year-old business - from the British Printing Corporation. A number of acquisitions large and small saw more than ten brands absorbed into the group before Fergus Bailie took over three years ago.
“Our mission, as we continue to grow, is to create an entrepreneurial collective of collaborative specialists capable of completing briefs that change lives. We don’t want to control the organisations we acquire - we want to empower them to utilise the technology and expert knowledge we can offer as a group, for societal gain. I think this provides quite a refreshing change versus investment from private equity or venture capital routes, and this was one of the key reasons for the brand overhaul. We’re not just a faceless holding company, and the rebrand is just the start of us highlighting that,” said Bailie.