Gateshead security business ready for new expansion drive

Mar 8 2010 by Andrew Hebden, The Journal

A NORTH East security business is embarking on a major expansion plan after recruiting a former Newcastle United and Liverpool FC finance director to spearhead a fundraising drive.

Les Wheatley spent two years at St James' Park before moving to Anfield where he worked for almost 10 years before leaving the club last January following its takeover by Americans Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

Now he has returned to the North East to join the management team at Team Valley-based Protector Group as the business pushes ahead with plans to more than double turnover to around £20m over the next three years.

Protector is looking to initially raise around £3m to help roll out its innovative mobile security camera systems, which are already proving popular with leading construction companies for use on building sites. The systems, which are built on the Team Valley by a local engineering company and then fitted out by Protector, are remotely connected to the firm’s head office control room.

Mr Wheatley is leading the effort to raise the funds needed for the expansion, which he expects to create around 100 new jobs.

His appointment sees him reunited with former Newcastle United chief executive Freddie Fletcher who became a director of Protector in 2008 along with former Metropolitan Police commissioner Lord Stevens, who became the firm’s chairman.

Before working in football, Mr Wheatley amassed a huge amount of experience in business, including leading an employee buy-out of the Manchester Bus Company and subsequently selling it on to Stagecoach plc.

In his two years at Newcastle United, he led the project to raise £55m to pay for the redevelopment of St James’s Park.

Mr Wheatley said he was attracted to Protector because of the group’s ambitious expansion plans, particularly for its mobile cameras division where he described progress to date as “very encouraging”.

“The company has been through two tough years during the recession but has now reinvented itself,” he said.

“We are talking to a number of funders to get the funding required for the capital investment (to roll out the mobile cameras division)... this is a huge expansion that we are talking about.”

Mr Fletcher said: “When Lord Stevens and I joined the Protector Group, we set a course to become a leading security business in our home market by delivering a high quality service. Les’s appointment is another important milestone for the business.”