One-time engineer and devout Muslim Mo Merali may not fit the accountant stereotype. But his varied experience and egalitarian perspective have done no harm to this Grant Thornton partner's career. Words by Tony Glove.
"My job is about getting things done," explains Grant Thornton's Mo Merali, with the confidence that comes from having been made partner at 28 in a firm of financial advisers with over 40 offices nationwide and more than 15,000 corporate and institutional clients.
This pragmatic approach can be traced back to when, as a young man educated to 'O' level standard in Kenya, Merali came to the UK to complete his education. Perhaps accountancy wasn't foremost in his mind when he enrolled on his mechanical engineering degree course at Imperial College, London, but he is proud of his degree and believes engineering is undervalued in the UK. "Engineering and accountancy are complementary, but engineers do not hold senior positions in British companies, as a rule," he says. "But if you look at Germany, it is far more common for senior executives to hold engineering degrees. That is probably why German engineering is the best in the world," he argues.
Of the three transactions Merali has handled for August Equity in the past eight months, he says the £41 million take-private of Planit, provider of world-class design and manufacturing software for the engineering, woodworking, stone and retail industries, was perhaps the most complex. "Although the business was relatively small, the company was made up of six mini businesses, which brought its own challenges," he says. Planit's management wanted freedom from half-yearly reporting to the City, to enable them to concentrate on long-term value creation and not the next set of figures.
Merali notes that the key challenges on his other two deals - the £29 million buy-out of superyacht publisher and event organiser Boat International and the buy-out of home healthcare specialist Lifeways - presented very similar challenges. "We were working to very tight timetables and found ourselves facing a number of potential deal-breakers," he says. The fact that these companies are part of the August Equity portfolio bears testament to Merali's ability to find solutions. "After August Equity has spent months looking at a deal, it's my responsibility to confirm everything is what they thought it was, in detail, and to help close the deal," he says.
As the eldest of five brothers, Merali has been honing his man-management skills for many years. Acting as guide and mentor to each of his siblings as they arrived in England, he has continued to manage their interests - the brothers and their families pool their resources and manage their finances together as if they were a small private firm.
Once a year, he takes two and a half weeks' leave from Grant Thornton's office to perform the Hajj - the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Devout Muslims are obliged to complete the journey to the holy city in western Saudi Arabia - birthplace of the Prophet Mohammed and the holiest city in Islam - once in their life, but Merali has made a commitment to visit Mecca once a year. "The journey acts as a spiritual and mental tonic. It reminds me that there is more to life than money and deals," he says. "Mecca is a huge equaliser. All races and classes are treated in exactly the same way. Everyone lives in tents and wears the same two pieces of cloth, whether they are a Sheikh or a pauper."
Merali believes that having this perspective on his work enables him to look beyond the balance sheet to the personal motivations and aspirations of the people involved in the deals he executes. He always pays as much attention to the aspirations of a company's management as to its financial projections. Similarly, he doesn't allow work to dominate his family life.
On a typical day, Merali will be up early to have breakfast with his children before dropping them off at school. But when his black BMW convertible isn't doing the school run, it may well be taking him to the golf course, hectic conference call-heavy schedules permitting. "I only picked up golf six years ago, but it appeals to me more than body-contact sports," he says. A keen leg spinner and number eight bat since his boyhood in Kenya, he sees many similarities between the two sports: "Golf is 80 per cent a mind game and 20 per cent skill - which is why it appeals to me."
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