Disclaimer: Unless noted otherwise, views and analysis expressed here are the author's own and based on public sources. The article is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional for investment decisions.

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Just as you thought this summer couldn't get any hotter, we’re bringing you a two-part series on Phenna Group: one of the fastest-growing Testing, Inspection, Certification and Compliance (TICC) aggregators globally. The UK-headquartered Phenna may not be a household name yet, but its tentacles spread wide. Water hygiene; non-destructive testing; search services; food safety; energy assessment - and then some! 

Since being founded by Paul Barry and David Harrison in 2018, Phenna has completed over 100 acquisitions, growing topline from 0 to £900M ($1.2B) on a run-rate basis (FY26 revenue forecast is £800M, according to S&P).  

Owing to a sticky client base and an asset-light business model, much of Phenna’s run-rate EBITDA of £200M+ ($270M+) falls straight to cash flow, enabling it to carry 8x leverage. This debt pile is of course the legacy of a late 2022 exit to Oakley Capital, a PE firm with a soft spot for Buy & Builds. Oakley’s bold bet - it paid close to 18x EBITDA (incl. deals under LOI, such as CTS), outbidding Carlyle - so far appears to be vindicated by subsequent growth, including a more than 3x increase in EBITDA.   

The more technical stuff, including breakdowns of Phenna’s M&A and integration playbooks, will come in Part II. Today, we will discuss Phenna’s early years. Specifically, how David and Paul created escape velocity by closing 50+ acquisitions and achieving £60M ($80M) in EBITDA in just 3.5 years. 

In doing so, they turned £10M in primary equity (a rollover from the first acquisition) into nearly £800M in exit proceeds. How’s that?!  

Read on to learn about:     

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Let’s go back to the summer of 2017. Paul Barry was a 52-year British executive with two decades of leadership roles in reputable TICC aggregators (Bureau Veritas, Germanischer Lloyd, Exova) - and time on his hands. His 2-year stint at Exova came to an end when the Edinburgh-based provider of lab-based testing was taken private by Element Materials Technology, a Bridgepoint PortCo.

Rather than look for another job (or retire), Paul decided to bet on himself. He set out to build a TICC rollup that followed 3 core principles: 

As Paul put it: “Many of the businesses we acquire are incredibly profitable – I'm not going to risk brassing off these people and their man­agement for the sake of saving a few bob…I want them to stick around, keep their entrepreneurial spirit and continue developing the company."

Sound familiar? Of course it does! 

Around the same time Richard Steer, a fellow Brit and a car paint veteran, was mulling a takeover for Baldwins, a collision repair chain in the outskirts of London. He went ahead and hasn't looked back since. Between 2018 and 2025, Richard grew his eponymous rollup, Steer Automotive, from 4 sites to 200+ nationally, and from £10M (c.$13M) to over £600M (c.$800M) in revenue - without sacrificing decentralisation. Like Phenna, today Steer is majority owned by Oakley. 

Further reading: 6 years, 400x equity value to $500M+. The incredible story of Steer Automotive, Britain’s collision repair colossus

Paul’s ambition was rather modest: “£5-10M EBITDA in 5 years”. And even that target looked far from attainable given the early setbacks. 

Years later, Paul would reminisce about “walking the streets of London for four months in late 2017, doing a Dragon’s Den pitch to anyone who’d listen in the Private Equity world”. 

Paul found a receptive audience in Academy Association Inc. aka Eli Global, a North Carolina conglomerate with a compelling rags-to-riches story and a portfolio of 115 companies at the time. Eli’s London-based Associate, a 30-year old investment professional by the name of David Harrison, joined as a co-founder in September 2018. 

In 2018, the Eli-backed Phenna - an acronym of Paul’s children’s names, bookended with his and his wife’s - completed the first 2 acquisitions: 

Shockingly, just months later Eli’s founder Greg Lindberg and key associates were charged with public corruption and bribery. Mr. Lindberg was eventually jailed for 12 years for orchestrating a “bribery conspiracy and multibillion-dollar fraud conspiracy that bankrupted multiple insurance companies with thousands of unpaid policyholder victims”. 

Paul and David were so determined to cling onto the two assets, they decided to do an MBO. There were two problems however. One, they didn't have much time. Two, they didn't have much money.

It was time to get creative.