The Friday Interview: Conor Walsh, Andor Technology

CONOR WALSH belongs to a very exclusive club in Northern Ireland. In fact it currently has only three members – Walsh, John McCann and Brian Conlon. The club would gladly welcome prospective members but in recent years newcomers have been somewhat thin on the ground . . . Walsh, McCann and Conlon are the chief executives of Northern Ireland’s three listed companies.

Walsh is the chief executive of Andor Technology, the west Belfast-based manufacturer of high-performance scientific digital cameras. He is proud of the fact that – with the exception of John McCann and Brian Conlon, the respective chief executives of UTV Media and First Derivatives – he is something of an endangered species in the North.

Last year, it appeared that Walsh’s days as a paid-up member of Northern Ireland’s listed chief executives club was in some doubt. Andor Technology, which celebrates 20 years in business this week, was the subject of a dramatic takeover wrangle in 2008.

First a bid was tabled by a management and private equity investor vehicle known as Thorndale Trading, which was led by Walsh. This bid was initially recommended by Andor’s independent directors to shareholders.

Just as it appeared that Northern Ireland was about to lose one of its few listed companies other suitors appeared in the wings and tabled rival bids. First up was Carraig Capital – an investment vehicle controlled by the founder of Kingspan, Eugene Murtagh – and Andor’s co-founder, Hugh Cormican.

A third party emerged, Photonis Holding – owned by a French group – with apparent interest in acquiring the Belfast firm.

Despite all the drama it came to nothing, but not before it gave Walsh a few very interesting days at Andor’s headquarters on the Springfield Road in west Belfast.

Walsh joined Andor as finance director in 2002. He was closely involved in the company’s listing on the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange in 2004 and on the IEX market in Dublin in 2007.

Walsh says the management bid set off a chain of events which resulted in a “difficult period”. “It is never a good period when the outcome of events goes out of the control of the immediate management team and this lasted for quite some time – it was nearly a year from start to finish,” he adds.

Walsh said it was all triggered “by a rapid decline in the share price” which he and the management team “felt was unreflective of the value that was really truly in the business”.

“Our real objective was to ensure that the shareholders who had invested in the company got true value. When you are a public business, people can walk in off the street and buy chunks of your company so, to some extent, you lose a little bit of control that way.

“We went through a process that all the people who are out there had the opportunity to look at the business and decide if they wanted to acquire it. There were no further offers put to shareholders and the process ended. I have to say that I am relieved that the process is complete because it is a distraction from the ordinary running of the business.

“The one good thing is that the management team delivered the best year’s results that the business has ever seen so we tried not to lose focus during that time, but it was a bit of a challenge.”

Latest financial results show that in the 12 months to September 2008, Andor posted a turnover of £24.7 million – up by 16.2 per cent year on year. Walsh says that revenues for the first half of this financial year will exceed £15 million which represents an increase of 30 per cent over the same period last year.

“Our strategy is to grow this business as a listed business. Historically, our listed businesses in Northern Ireland have either collapsed or been bought. Our view is that, rather than being acquired, we would like to be the acquirer. We don’t see any reason why being here would be a hindrance to that. We are a young business with a young workforce and high expectations and I don’t see any reason why this business can’t continue to grow, expand and acquire and continue to be listed,” he says.

But Walsh also admits he is not “massively passionate about staying listed”.

“What I am very passionate about is Andor continuing to be based in Northern Ireland and continuing to grow. We are a knowledge-based company. If you took all our people out of here you would be left with nothing. It is good for our business to be based in Northern Ireland and we will grow from Northern Ireland.

“I am not saying that we won’t in the future manufacture from other locations but our headquarters will always be in Northern Ireland.”

Although Walsh comes from a strong financial background, he believes that the “culture” within Andor naturally excites people about the business.

“What we are doing is really interesting. We are a small company sitting in the middle of west Belfast competing with billion-dollar organisations around the world. We’re selling digital scientific cameras to China,” says Walsh.

The company began life as a spin-out venture from the physics department of Queen’s University in Belfast. Its founders – Dr Hugh Cormican, Dr Donal Denvir and Mike Pringle – were unhappy with the cameras then available for their demanding research, decided to develop their own, then took it commercial.

Today the company employs 200 people and distributes its products to 1,200 customers in 55 countries.

Walsh believes its early pioneering spirit and enthusiasm for product development remains an important part of Andor’s ethos. “We are doing some unique things here and, from my own perspective, it is a great place to work.”

He says the “broad mix of personalities” is an important factor in the success the company has achieved over the last 20 years.

“If you had come to an Andor board meeting 10 years ago it would probably have had eight PhDs around the table because that is where the company was. That is different now,” Walsh says.

But he does admit that being chief executive of a company such as Andor gives him the opportunity to take a different approach to management.

“Andor has a unique culture and a unique way of doing things. We have a very strong value proposition in the business which all of our employees must embrace in terms of how we do things, how we engage with people, and all of that matters.”

He personally is not a fan of “combative” management. “I have worked for people who are all into just roaring and shouting at you – that is their way of motivating you and that is not how we do things here. In Andor we try to play to people’s strengths – get them to enjoy it and to deliver what they are best capable of doing.”

In any case if anyone does get too hung up on an issue in Andor all Walsh needs to do is point at the video-conferencing room to bring them back down to earth. “Only one digit separates our video conference line from the county council number you contact to get your bin emptied in this area,” he says.

It pretty much puts things in perspective for the hi-tech geniuses in Andor. Walsh genuinely wants his employees to enjoy working at Andor.

“I do not want anybody here no matter how good they are who does not enjoy doing what they are doing – because they are not working to their best for the company and they will drag down the rest of the people in the business.

“Enjoying what you do is not really like ‘Let’s all live in a Kibbutz and burn incense’, there are genuine business motivators for making sure people enjoy their work.”

ON THE RECORD

Name:Conor Walsh


Age:42

Position:chief executive, Andor Technology

Family:married, two children

Background:Northern Ireland-born. Studied maths and computing at Queen's University, then studied accountancy at Jordanstown University. He is a fellow and a chartered director of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

Before joining Andor he worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers in the corporate finance division. He also held senior finance positions in manufacturing companies in the North.

Something you might expect:he is a fan of technology.

Something that might surprise:he plays bass guitar for a well-known "blues brothers" band in Northern Ireland, The Booze Brothers, and was a full-time musician for a while.