Burning bright
Kerry Micheal’s revitalisation of Weston-super-Mare’s iconic pier was struck by disaster. He tells Christian Annesley how he is bouncing back.
On 27 July this year Kerry Michael was preparing to go on holiday. It was a Sunday and the chairman of AGM Holdings and owner of Regency Insurance Brokers was slightly reluctant to be swapping his home town of Weston-super-Mare for Spain, if only for a few days.
Over the spring and early summer, Kerry and his staff had put a huge effort into improving Weston’s Grand Pier, after the purchase of the iconic 104-year-old structure back in February. And the effort looked like it was about to pay off.
“I didn’t want to go on holiday all that much. It was less than a week since the tradesmen we had brought in to overhaul the pier had left. The schools had just broken up for the summer holidays. It was a real buzz to be on the pier every day and a wrench to take myself away,” he says.
Since buying the pier, Kerry and his sister Michelle had invested about £1m over five months, upgrading the catering facilities and installing a climbing wall and an indoor go-kart track among other improvements.
But Kerry eventually did head for Spain – and had just arrived early on the Monday morning when he took a call from his distraught sister telling him something he would have hoped never to hear: the pier’s pavilion was ablaze and looked like it would be completely destroyed.
“Even today when I walk down the pier I can’t believe it when I get to the end,” says Kerry. “Every time I expect to see the pavilion back there. It’s really unbelievable that it’s gone.”
In the three months since the fire Kerry hasn’t had much time for wistfulness, however; he’s already embarked on a monumental push to get the pier rebuilt and open inside two years.
“I think we have had to move quickly to reassure everyone. Not just our 120 staff but the town itself. The first step, which took just three days, was to re-open the pier. That wasn’t an important commercial decision – if I’m honest it’s probably costing us money – but it is absolutely crucial to everyone’s morale.”
It’s not surprising to hear Kerry single out morale as holding the key to pulling off this particular challenge, since finding good people and fostering togetherness among his workers has clearly been a key ingredient in his business success.
“I hate selling my companies because a business is all about its people – and you never want to sell them out,” he says. “Most of my staff I count as my friends. And that was even true when we had 470 staff at Regency.
We had built the business up from eight people initially to the point where it was the largest extended warranty company in the UK – and we got there together.”
Kerry has sold some businesses down the years, of course, including the furniture warranty business at Regency for £44.7m in 2002 and, more recently, his half stake in the garden centre Sanders GardenWorld to the Wyevale Group.
But he says the former sale wastoo good to pass up and the latter was driven by his business partners. And in both cases, many key staff have followed him to remain with his AGM group of businesses.
“We’ve even got the caterers that were operating at the garden centre,” he says proudly. “They are working for us on the pier.”
Catering, in fact, has been one area where Kerry says the pier looks set to race ahead once it reopens.
“The pier is the first business I have ever bought. I set all the others up myself. And it’s been good to see that applying what I consider to be sound business practices brings immediate improvement.
“The previous owners didn’t really measure the business much, but it gives you something to aim at. What we quickly found is that the food offer could transform the pier’s fortunes. In March, just after we took over, we worked out the average spend per visitor was 32p a head; in April, as we improved things, that had risen to 65p, and in May it had climbed again to £1.18. Those are pretty startling numbers.”
Kerry’s enthusiasm and energy is infectious. And it means the fire, while it has put one adventure on hold, merely looks to have begun another.
“I’m not scared of making decisions and getting on with things. Never have been,” he says. “It’s in my nature to press on.”
And press on he has. The clearance of the site, which is being undertaken by Bristol-based TR Demolition, is already ahead of schedule, and Kerry hopes to have a planning application in front of the local council by Christmas.
After that, he will be at the mercy of the various public sector agencies that also have a stake in the pier’s future, but remains hopeful that momentum won’t be lost.
“It’s likely this is the biggest thing that will ever have come before today’s Somerset planners in their lifetime. I just hope they take up the challenge so we can keep things moving.”
If not, perhaps the planners need to be warned: they truly are up against a man with a mission.
