We decided to open in Cardiff. As ever the problem was finding some premises. We found some rather nice offices right on Cardiff Bay. The only problem was that they wanted to put a leisure centre there and demolish the offices. We thought that it would take years for this to happen and we opened the office with a flourish. In fact, within a few months we were thrown out.
So we were left looking for some new premises and since we always wanted to buy, if possible, we ended up driving out to an industrial estate called Cowbridge. The sat NAV had never heard of the place and when I tried to use it, it announced that we’d arrived when all I could see around me or fields.
We started off well and ran some successful contracts. These included a contract for Marks and Spencers that went particularly well. I took the team out for a meal to celebrate and we stayed in a rather nice golf hotel. I thought they were joking when they said they were expecting me to pay the bill but the next morning I had to. During the meal, I said that if they made the profit that I wanted I will give them all a nice bonus. They didn’t make the profit so I didn’t make the make the payment of the bonus. They came close and apparently, they thought but I should have paid them and resented the fact that I hadn’t.
In the familiar story by now, we had to close down the operation because it was no longer making money and try to sell the premises. The only buyer we could find was the company that sold it to us in the first place and so eventually we took a bath and sold it back to them at a loss.