When Guy Mears sat down with potential buyers for his family's carpet business, he wasn't primarily thinking about valuations or deal structures. After 50 years at the helm of H. Mears (Furnishers) Ltd. — a company his family had built over six generations and 220 years in Preston, Lancashire — he was thinking about people.
"From our first meeting, I felt Philip and the AIA team genuinely understood what our 220-year legacy represents — the high standards we've built with our loyal staff and clients, many of whom have been with us for more than 30 years," says Mears. "This must continue, and I'm certain it will. That's what sets Mears apart."
The acquisition of Mears, with experienced operator Philip Cefai appointed as CEO, is more than a successful business deal. It shows why the management buy-in model works for family businesses facing succession challenges — and why the right approach matters as much as the right price.
Across Europe, thousands of profitable family businesses face a common dilemma: owners approaching retirement without clear successors. The Mears family found themselves in this position despite running a well-established, profitable operation with deep roots in their community. The company had rejected previous approaches from other buyers. What made the difference this time wasn't a higher bid—it was a fundamentally different approach to the transaction itself.
Philip Cefai, who came from running Crown Paints as Managing Director, understood this instinctively. "I think when you've built a business for over 50 years, you want to make sure it's passed into the hands of someone that's going to care as much as you did," he explains. "They want to make sure the team is going to be looked after and continue the good name of Mears. Service was everything to Guy. It still is."
The first meeting between Cefai and Guy Mears proved pivotal. Rather than leading with financial projections, Cefai led with honesty about his own experience — and his limitations. "We sat in the restaurant, and he asked me what I knew about commercial flooring," Cefai recalls. "And to be fair, I said, 'Not a lot. But what I do know about, from my career, is building customer relationships, developing teams, and running profitable operations.'"
That candour created the foundation for everything that followed. "If I'd tried to pull the wool over his eyes at that point, I think we'd have been finished," Cefai admits. Instead, honesty built trust — and trust, more than any financial metric, proved to be the currency that mattered most.
During their conversations, Cefai made an observation that cut to the heart of the matter. "I said to him, 'I don't think this is just about the money. Sure, you want a fair deal, but actually this is about you feeling comfortable that you can step away, and knowing emotionally that when you have to sign, you can do it.'" Guy Mears agreed: it was going to be an emotional wrench, and no amount of additional money would make that easier unless the human element was right.
AIA's approach — finding experienced operators like Cefai and matching them with businesses like Mears — addresses a gap in the market for family business succession. The platform provides the capital, due diligence support, and deal execution expertise that allows operators to focus on what matters most: building relationships with sellers and demonstrating they're the right custodians for a business's legacy.
Cefai came to AIA through a contact in his network who recognized the fit. After two decades in corporate environments, he was looking for something different. "In large businesses, they can become quite complex, you question where the added value is from group functions and as they get bigger they can easily lose sight of the customer and actions not matching the words " he explains. "When something comes along like this — a small, family business that's been run well, delivering profits, with good customers and a good team — it was just too good to pass up."
The AIA team provided crucial support throughout the acquisition process. "The devil's in the detail, and you need people who can crunch the numbers and data to provide usable documents that you can start to build plans from," Cefai notes. "Whether that was legals, financials, commercials, contracts, leases — the team consumed all of that and put it together in a way you could actually formulate your plans."
No acquisition is without its anxieties, and Cefai is candid about the concerns he faced going in. "The transparency of the data was probably the biggest concern," he admits. "You can do as much digging as you want, but you don't know — was the data reflective of the business, or had things been missed or presented in a way that we misunderstood?"
His initial worry, however, centred on something less quantifiable: the customer relationships that Guy Mears had cultivated over decades. "My concern was how those relationships would continue, and how we'd manage that," Cefai explains. The solution emerged through conversation: Guy wanted to stay on for a transitional period, both for the business and his own passion for what he had built, allowing Cefai to meet customers with what he calls "the previous owner's rubber stamp of approval." In previous acquisitions Cefai had witnessed, owners departed immediately, leaving new leadership to walk in cold. This time would be different.
The due diligence process itself was intensive. "There were reams and reams of data," Cefai recalls. "I'm not the best person at processing that much data — that's not my skill set. Having the AIA team go through everything and pull it together in a way you could actually use was critical. We couldn't have done it without that support."
One concern that surfaces in any acquisition is how the new owner will handle the existing operation. When Cefai was asked by staff whether he would turn Mears into a corporate operation, his answer was unequivocal.
"This isn't about a revolution. This is something that you evolve and you tweak to fine-tune things that may have been neglected over time," he says. "You've got to be humble enough to take on the wisdom of people who have been in the business — the owner, the staff — and combine it with what you bring. There's no point saying we're not going to make any changes, but people have to acknowledge they'll be tweaks to refine how the business works."
The approach extends to growth strategy. Rather than pursuing dramatic expansion into new markets, Cefai's focus is on deepening existing relationships. "We're going to grow with the existing customers. So we're continuing with what Mears has done. This isn't a case of going into new markets and forgetting about these customers. It's about how we continue those partnerships and make them stronger."
That said, Cefai has already identified opportunities to strengthen the business through targeted improvements. "One simple thing I identified was the need for having one view of the customer," he explains. "This is a service business, and with better use of the CRM system it will give us better visibility, better tracking, and better forecasting of the pipeline."
He's also bringing structure to communication. "I've come from a business where the diaries were full of meetings every hour, to a business that doesn't have any formal meetings," he observes. "Simple things like a weekly meeting will improve communication — making sure everyone knows what we're aiming for, how we're doing against those aims, and what actions we need to take if we start veering off track."
Mears employs 33 people in Preston and has been part of the Lancashire community for more than two centuries. For Cefai, that history carries weight.
"I've always had a sense of responsibility," he reflects. "Going right back to when I was an account manager 28 years ago, I knew how much the business relied on the revenue we generated. The people in the factory or the warehouse don't have the choice to go out and get work — they rely on us winning and securing business. Maybe its further engrained from my Dads experience working in a factory managing a team and who were dependent on others winning new business for them to keep them in work”
That sense of stewardship extends to the broader community. "The plan is to make Mears even stronger so we can bring on more resources from the surrounding areas and the business continues for many more years — another 200, hopefully."
When asked what success looks like five years into the acquisition, Cefai returns to the theme that runs through every aspect of the deal: people.
"Success for me starts with the people. It starts with developing their skills as much as they want and as much as we need as a business. That makes them better at their jobs, feel better about themselves, and allows us to expand the workforce in line with how we're growing."
The financial dimension isn't ignored — profitability enables investment in new equipment, technology, and facilities. But it's framed as a means to an end. "You've got to be profitable to do that," Cefai acknowledges. "I'm not ashamed of saying we need to generate those profits to make sure we carry the business forward."
Perhaps most tellingly, Cefai circles back to the very challenge that created the opportunity. "The reason Guy decided to sell the business is because there wasn't a succession plan. So if we're really true to our word about family-run business succession, then we need to make sure we put in place the succession plan to continue the business for generations to come."
The Mears acquisition offers a template for how management buy-ins can solve the succession crisis facing family businesses across Europe. It's not enough to have capital and operational expertise — though both are necessary. What distinguishes successful transitions from failed ones is often something simpler and harder to quantify: the ability to build genuine trust with sellers who are handing over their life's work.
"I've been fortunate to achieve a lot in my career working in some great businesses" Cefai notes. "What drives me now is developing the team to be even more successful and better versions of themselves. That's really what it's about."
For the 33 employees in Preston, for the customers who have trusted Mears for decades, and for the community that has relied on this 220-year-old institution, that people-first philosophy may be the most valuable asset of all.
