Founder of Gloucester Brewery launches new business
As he starts an exciting new chapter the founder of Gloucester Brewery reveals his latest business, and it may not be what you might expect at all.
Dear Readers,
Welcome to Monday’s edition of The Raikes Journal. If you are one of the growing number who has subscribed to receive these emails, we thank you. If you have not yet subcribed, please do consider joining them!
Regular readers will know that we send out at least three editions a week - on Monday, Thursday and Friday - dropping a paywall over the main stories on those second and third editions so that only our paid-for subscribers can read those.
We do that to try and help make sustainable what this community interest company is seeking to do, deliver some real community orientated journalism for Gloucestershire supporting its business, charity, education and training sectors.
Today we feature our usual selections of bite-sized news snippets, including a special service due to take place this week at the county’s Cathedral to celebrate National Volunteer week, bring you news of Superdry, 11 promotions at a county law firm, grants for rural businesses in Tewesbury and for our main story - we explain why the founder of Gloucester Brewery has started a new business. Oh, and don’t miss our diary dates at the foot of the page!
We hope you enjoy the edition and have a great week!
Please do continue to bear us in mind for your stories and ideas. Contact andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk or telephone 07956 926061.
* Everything you read on The Raikes Journal is made possible by our incredible Founding Partners: QuoLux, Willans LLP, Gloucestershire College and Merrell People; our sponsors: Randall & Payne and Hartpury University and Hartpury College; our Founding Members and all our wonderful paying subscribers. If you upgrade to paid too, you’ll be able to see beyond the paywalls we place on many of our second and third email editions of the week and that lock our archive after two weeks. You will be able to view our rolling Top 100 Businesses in Gloucestershire series comment on our stories and you’ll be helping to make possible this community interest company dedicated to supporting the county, its businesses, charities and education and training providers — all for just £2.30 per week!! For commercial opportunities visit our About us page or email andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk.
Special service to say ‘thank you’
Regular readers will also know that on Thursday (6 June) Gloucestershire’s Volunteer Awards are due to take place, marking National Volunteer Week. What you may not know is that on Saturday (8 June) there will also be a very special ceremony at Gloucester Cathedral to cap-off all the celebrations.
Mark Hurrell, High Sheriff of Gloucestershire, says it better than we can: “In Gloucestershire we have over 150,000 volunteers who put ‘service before self’ and help those around them. Unsung heroes who run scout and guide groups, choirs, sports teams, act as school governors, magistrates, special constables, help preserve our glorious countryside and historic buildings etc …. the list is virtually endless!
“To mark their dedication there’s a special service at the Cathedral in Gloucester on Saturday at 4.30. It’s free - no need to book tickets - and I just hope you can come with people from your organisation who volunteer, and hopefully join hundreds of others (including me!) who regularly volunteer. Please make it a day to remember.”
Your Monday briefing notes
🤝 The on-going Superdry saga made interesting by Julian Dunkerton’s proposed ‘rescue plan’ for the fashion business looked to have hit a major roadblock - until now. Reports from those close to the story said the planned multi-million pound funding injection from the Cheltenham entrepreneur, who founded the firm and is the retailer’s chief executive officer, was not so much the problem as the push for ‘heavy rent cuts’ from various landlords. British Land, which owns various Superdry sites, was said to object strongly, as did the owner of the label's flagship Oxford store, M&G, which has apparently engaged the law firm Hogan Lovells to examine the proposals. Those objections have apparently now been dropped. Dunkerton is said to favour a delisting from the London Stock Exchange, if the restructuring plan is successful.
📈 After growing at an average of 55 per cent a year for three years, the predicted slowdown for a newly-listed AIM business from the Cotswolds shows no signs of arriving. The firm, which supplies staff to the civil engineering sector, had predicted in its annual results earlier this year that its astonishing rate of growth would not continue. That prediction wasn’t entirely right, as its latest interim results show! You can read the full story in our Reports and Deals channel, how of our Top 100 Businesses in Gloucestershire series, here.
🏆 The Believe in Gloucester Awards has seen over 260 nominations already, but with names still coming in the team at organisers Gloucester BID has extended the deadline until Friday 14 June 2024. So if you know a business or individual who fits the bill for one of the 15 awards, you still have time to put their name into the mix. Judges will meet in July to shortlist, voting for the finalists will be open in August and September with the awards night itself due to take place on 20 November 2024. Find out more right here.
💷 Grants for businesses of between £3,000 to £24,999 are available for those in the rural areas of Tewkesbury Borough. This is round two of the council’s efforts to distribute £160,000 of grant funding from the Rural England Prosperity Fund to improve productivity and strengthen the economy in rural communities. The money is available for small scale investments in micro and small enterprises, including capital funding for net zero infrastructure and diversification of farm businesses outside of agriculture. The scheme is open until 9am on Monday 22 July. Find out more here.
11 lawyers on the rise in Gloucestershire
🎉 We would like to say a very special congratulations to the lawyers at the centre of this story from Willans LLP which we have featured in full elsewhere on The Raikes Journal (see the link below). The article marks the promotion of 11 of the Cheltenham-headquartered firm’s staff, further underlining the strength of depth and growing demand for the services of a business we are very proud to say is also one of the Founding Partners of The Raikes Journal. You can read the full story here.
Founder of Gloucester Brewery launches new business
As he starts an exciting new chapter the founder of Gloucester Brewery reveals his latest business, and it may not be what you might expect at all.
By Andrew Merrell
Stories of individuals leaving jobs in finance and big business to follow their dreams, maybe opening their own food company, perhaps starting a microbrewery, are legion and inspirational.
You don’t often hear about people doing that in reverse, building a brewery and making it a success before deciding the next step is working in finance and helping others look after their money.
Which brings us to Jared Brown. Anyone who has followed the story of the rise and rise of Gloucester Brewery and wonders where its founder went – we are about to tell you.
In fact Brown has already officially announced his next move - which he did at an invitation-only event at Rodway Golf Club where he launched Jared Brown Financial, a financial planning business operating under the wing of the county’s biggest firm by turnover, wealth management experts St James’s Place plc.
“I had been weighing it all up for a while; having conversations about where I wanted to go next,” said Brown when we meet at his new offices on the Highnam Business Centre, just off the B4215 Gloucester to Newent Road, within walking distance of his home.
“We have two young children and working at the brewery, with all that entails, I didn’t get the chance to spend as much time with them as I wanted and I knew something had to change.
“A friend of mine suggested I should look at financial planning. It was an area that already piqued my interest having run my own business before, and I started doing some research.”
This was early 2023, but the thoughts of change had been bubbling for a while. Those conversations were with friends, family, business contacts, and with the most important person in his life, his wife, Hayley.
She also ran her own company, a family care business, and is now a partner in Jared Brown Financial.
Brown founded Gloucester Brewery in 2011 and grew it from its base at Gloucester Dock to take over what is now Warehouse 4 – the bar and venue beside Llanthony Road Bridge, which also incorporates Fox’s Kiln Distillery. There is also a bar at Cheltenham Racecourse too, and a deal to supply beer into Gloucester Rugby’s ground.
It’s a business that built a reputation not just for its beer, but for its ‘earth conscious’ approach to brewing and gained so much loyalty that when it hit the tough times of the pandemic and emerged with a business plan seeking crowd-funding investment it quickly secured the £500,000 necessary.
Just before that period – in November 2019 - Brown had unveiled new partners, Martin St Quinton, owners of Gloucester Rugby, Simon Thomas, founder and former owner of Thomas Legal Group, and Dave Lewins, a businessman from Cheltenham, who between them bought a 35 per cent stake in the brewery.
Perhaps it was the mammoth effort he had to put in to keep the business operational through the pandemic, which closed all bars and pubs, plus all the years prior, that made him realise it was time for a new figurehead to drive the brewery – of which he remains a shareholder.
Whatever it was, he knew it was time for a change personally – and the research he put into solving the question ‘what next?’ led him to St James’s Place.
The Cirencester-based firm, which has £179 billion of funds under management at the last count, also runs St. James’s Place Financial Adviser Academy, which specialises in training those looking to move into the sector.
And it is here that Brown quietly enrolled last year.
“I was also impressed with its approach to sustainability,” said Brown, now in his mid-forties.
READ MORE: Brewery’s business plan has made it a catalyst for community
Speaking at his firm’s launch event at Rodway Golf Club he mentioned this again, saying he felt this ‘green’ element was also increasingly important for investors of all sizes.
How did the former Marling School pupil, Stroud’s grammar school, find having to hit the books at the academy after so long out of the classroom and leading a business?
“I have always enjoyed learning. And I needed a change as well, so I also had an appetite too,” he said.
The beauty of the association with St James’s Place is that while he forges the relationships with his customers, listens and comes up with the best way to handle their finances, from simple small amounts of money to more complex portfolios, he has the team at St James’s Place to lean on to support all of the plans he actions.
The firm has 2,673 employees, and 4,556 advisers in partnership (of which Brown is now also one) which makes it the largest network of accredited and chartered financial advisers in the UK.
His business covers key areas including retirement and pension planning, tax efficient investments, inheritance tax and estate planning, personal protection and funding care needs.
“I would usually meet a potential customer, and we’ll talk about what they want to achieve, and write up what we call a life plan.
“It maybe the case I turn around and say ‘everything is looking good, there is nothing mor you can do at this stage, but please come back is your circumstances change.
“But usually working out life plans - around career, family, pension, projections of where they want to be in five years’ time. The point is it is up to me to understand what they want and then agree how we can get there.
“We spoke to someone the other day who lost 35 per cent of his pension investment immediately after Kwasi Kwarteng and Liz Truss’s disastrous Budget and he was looking at options, and we are helping someone else track down their missing pensions.
“It is about money, but at the end of the day this is also very much about people’s emotions. It’s about listening, finding out what is driving them, and how I can add value to help them arrive at what they want,” he added.
Jared Brown Financial already has 42 clients and an estimated £4 million of assets under his care.
For Brown, that human element is key. It is where you build the trust. It is this factor - the ability to put knowledgeble staff in front of customers that has helped make St James’s Place advisors a sought-after commodity.
Which perhaps explains why the sector Brown has moved into, once the reserved of the wealthy and now accessible even by the man in the street, is proving to be an area of growth – and is looking a very smart move for the former brewery owner.
Some diary dates
📅 Tuesday 4 June: Tomorrow from 9am to 12pm Will Abbott will host the Reimagining Leadership: Practical shifts to accelerate your success beyond 2024 workshop. To secure your place email marketing@randall-payne.co.uk or call Jo Kline at 01242 776000 for more info.
📅 Tuesday 4 June: Unrelated to the news above, there is also a Young Professionals Networking Bingo Night at Randall & Payne - a fundraiser and networking event - from 5.30pm to 7.30pm at its Chargrove House headquarters, Shurdington, GL51 4GA. Find out more here.
📅 🏆 Thursday: The annual Volunteer Awards, staged by Go Volunteer Glos, Charlies Cancer Support and the Gloucestershire VCS Alliance. Due to take place at The Growth Hub, at the University of Gloucestershire’s Oxstalls campus, Gloucester. Find out more about the finalists here.
📅 Friday: From today, 7 June, to Sunday 9 June Stroud Brewery will be celebrating its 18th birthday and saying thank-you to anyone and everyone who has supported it over the years with a giant party. On offer will be not just what’s made the brewery famous - its beer, but “an extravaganza of bands” featuring more than 50 acts and DJs as well as special kids’ entertainment on the Sunday.
📅 And one for the future… If you haven’t done so already, now is the time to enter this year’s Gloucester 10k. Due to take place on June 30, the race is organised by Nigell Tillot of Tewkesbury Running Club, substantially supported by Davies and Partners Solicitors, and the likes of Gloucester Rotary Club and construction firm EG Carter. The event raises money for good causes from across Gloucestershire.