No end in sight for Phenna

Phenna Group’s Paul Barry on doing deals, going for growth, and backing belief

Hello Rainmakers,

Paul Barry insists that Phenna don’t turnarounds. Instead, he buys good businesses with excellent leaders and makes them better.

It’s what caught the eye of Oakley Capital in 2022 when they invested in his business, Phenna.

As a foretaste to him speaking at a special lunch event in January, he tells Sam Metcalf his story so far.

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It is half term in a busy Nottinghamshire market town, but Paul Barry, founder and executive chairman of Phenna Group, seems completely focused. Sitting in a lively café filled with chatter and clinking cups, he speaks with the quiet confidence of someone who has built success through sheer persistence.

Over coffee, Barry describes how a company born from an idea and a few long days has become one of the UK’s fastest-growing testing, inspection and certification groups, now closing in on £200 million EBITDA and challenging global competitors.

Barry’s route to that point was far from conventional. “Believe it or not, I walked the streets of London for four months in late 2017, doing my Dragon’s Den pitch to anyone who’d listen in the private equity world,” he recalls.