British' Sensitivity to death means that many find it uncomfortable to plan funerals. Photo: LIAM ARTHUR
Margaret Thatcher's four hours of sleep a night for Gary Channon is equivalent to lying in bed.
«I go to bed at 4 am,» he says. «And I get up at 7 am. So that I have more «day» than most people.»
Based on a sleepy residential street in Barnes, southwest London, Channon runs Phoenix Asset Management Partners, a £1.3bn firm , which invests in as many as 12 listed UK firms.
In other words, it's about going big or going home.
«He's an absolute brain,» says the top -manager of one of the city's most famous funds firm describes Channon.
He definitely has plenty of time to use his gray matter. The days are for meetings. “[But] this is the night I do all my deep work,” Channon says. “I work six hours from ten to four in the morning because no one bothers you.”
Looking surprisingly fresh-faced, the 55-year-old former investment banker recently received the good news that his consortium now owns Dignity, the UK's largest funeral service provider.
It's a red letter day for Channon, whose stubborn battle for full control of the business has been going on for three years.
Along with Sir Peter Wood, the insurance magnate who founded companies such as Direct Line, Go Compare and esure, Channon's raid on Dignity is complete.
At 550p per share, the deal represents a premium of more than a third over the funeral company's traded price. Despite this, Sutton Coldfield is valued at £280m, a quarter of its value six years ago.
According to Dan Garrett, chief executive of Farewill, which started in 2015 as a will drafter but has since expanded to offer probate and cremation services, the UK funeral industry has traditionally grown at a «snail's pace».
But changes have been made to the sector in recent years after regulators exposed widespread price gouging by suppliers and misselling by brokers.
“One in eight people went into debt to pay for their funeral. And there were just groups of people calling widows at the age of 90,” explains Garrett.
After a period of private equity that culminated in the listing of Dignity on the stock exchange, the company was considered a model of the bad sector.
“Dignity has a really tough corporate history. ”, says Garrett.
This is a statement that Channon does not shy away from.
Gary Channon: 'I have an apartment 50 yards from Dignity's front door and sort of moved into'
While there is no hint of illegal activity in historical practices, he acknowledges that Dignity suffered from a toxic mixture of «bad character, bad ethics and bad economics.»
Take the outside broker network for example. which brought Dignity a prepaid funeral business. It was common practice for them to sign clients knowing full well that they would refuse in the coming years.
“If you go and pay someone a fee and at some point you never do a funeral; you lost some money there,” Channon says. “And if more than half of them are canceled in just over a year. Well, then there's no way you can make money.”
This practice was supposed to be eradicated by the time Channon began acquiring a stake in Dignity in 2020. He believed that the company's problems had been solved.
The following year, Channon claims it became apparent that some issues, such as reliance on broker sell policies to be cancelled, were not properly addressed.
The situation came to a head in early 2021 when he left from the board of directors of Dignity (Phoenix's stake gave him the right to appoint a director) after repeated warnings went unheeded.
A coup in the board of directors occurred in the spring of 2021, when Channon voted for shareholders to personally replace the executive Chairman Clive Wyllie.
Wylie stated that Channon acted «in his own interest» and lacked the «skill and judgment» required to run Dignity's publicly traded company. «status» and warned that the entire board would resign if Channon won.
He did, and the board left.
Channon recalls his first visit to Dignity headquarters on the outskirts of Birmingham shortly thereafter.
“I arrived at the locked office with a copy of the annual report and a list of who direct reports were,” he explains. “I had an apartment there, 50 yards from the front door, and I sort of moved into it.”
Channon looked back on his years at Japanese investment bank Nomura in the City in the 1990s.< /p>p>
«I'm at a point in my life right now where I can work long hours, you could probably work three full-time jobs — in terms of normal hours,» he says.< /p>
“ When I lived in Nomura City, I used to go to work on Monday and come home on Tuesday evening. Go all the way. I could skip nights.
“I have a genetic need for sleep. But I think you can train on your own.”
Phoenix's stake in Dignity at that time was 29.9%, the maximum that could have been without a formal takeover.
Veteran of the insurance business John Castagno was named Chairman of the Board of Directors in the summer of 2021.
Kate Davidson, who previously held executive positions at Dignity for eight years, returned to the firm in January 2022 as COO and later replaced Channon. the same year.
Channon officially stepped down from the board in June 2022.
But when it was announced in January 2023 that he had teamed up with Sir Peter Wood to file a takeover bid for the entire company, conflict of interest claims quickly arose.
“He's inside. He threw it in the ground to steal,” Channon says, recalling the allegations. “It was hard for the board. It had all the hallmarks of a conflict.”
Naturally, he rejects such claims. And now, with the required 75% shareholder approval for the takeover, Channon and Sir Peter are hatching plans for the future.
Sir Peter Wood: «I hope to make funeral plans more convenient and flexible.» Credit: Justin Williams/Shutterstock
“If you run all of Dignity's crematoria for as long as they can run, then it might not be exactly 24 hours, but it's definitely a lot longer than a business day. “then you could actually do all the cremations in the country now,” Channon explains.
“If you're trying to be energy efficient and trying to minimize your carbon footprint, you really want to, you want to do them together.
«He just makes one, leaves it for an hour to cool, and then makes another one, heating it up again: it doesn't make sense. That's a lot of fuel.»
Running crematoria like Dignity 46 almost 24 hours a day isn't as crazy as it sounds.
Direct or remote cremation is a growing trend. “We collect the dead, and then … we return the ashes to you. And you can hold the service elsewhere,” Channon explains.
This is not a new concept, but Garrett explains that the pandemic and funeral restrictions have made a big difference.
Before Covid, only 1.5% of cremations were done remotely; now that figure is 20%, he says.
“The cultural norms that existed in the past are simply no longer true,” says Garrett.
Bristol, one of Dignity's nearly 800 locations, is being used as a test bed for this new type of funeral. Paradoxically, summer wedding venues are being set up for celebrations.
“We hired someone from the wedding industry to help us with this,” Channon explains. “To move from buying a [funeral] package to celebrating life.
“How do you want to celebrate your life? Edit it like the late queen did and keep editing.
«You may like Led Zeppelin now, but later you might soften to Mozart.»
'Your farewell should be a celebration of a life well lived' Photo: RubberBall Productions/Brand x
Another radical concept, especially for the British, is how funerals are financed — or the growing number of alternatives. In the UK, death is a taboo subject.
This means that talk of how bills will be paid is often swept under the carpet.
In Britain, only 7% of people over 50 plan a funeral. Compare that to 70 percent in the Netherlands, Channon notes.
In China, an important obligation is to ensure that the cost of your death is established while you are still alive.
Sir Peter intervenes: “Here in the UK we avoid talking about what will happen after we leave. It's a pity, because your funeral or farewell should be a celebration of a life well lived.
“In other countries it is done — in Asia it is a duty — to prepare well for death. Closer to home in the Netherlands, most people have funeral plans of one kind or another.”
And the shake-up plans don't stop there.
Sir Peter thinks he can use his experience in insurance advertising — from Direct Line red phones to «Gio Compario,» the iconic opera singer who appears in Go Compare commercials — to add a little frivolity to the experience.
«I hope to make funeral plans more convenient and flexible, and to sell them in an attractive way,» says Sir Peter.
«I've already asked my creative people to see how it can be done.Maybe we would have a horse-drawn hearse with two horses saying to each other, «You know, he's done a lot.»
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