Pertemps staff can clean up

Christmas has come early for the staff of Pertemps recruitment agency, with employees being offered the chance to buy nearly half the company.

Yesterday, chairman Tim Watts announced to more than 1,000 staff that a new incentive scheme will give them the chance to take shares in the company gradually, using part of their salary.

Mr Watts told The Independent on Sunday that if staff take up the scheme, and Pertemps sticks to ambitious growth targets over the next 10 years, they could each receive a windfall of more than £500,000.

"There are a few ifs and buts," he said. "We can't control the economy. But in 2015 on current projections, a cleaner could get £500,000."

He added: "My staff are an extension of my family and I have always rewarded them for their hard work. I want to give them a greater sense of ownership and influence over the way the company is run, and that is why I am offering them the chance to buy into it via the Government's tax-efficient incentive scheme."

Pertemps was set up by Mr Watts' mother in 1961 and he has run the company for the past 30 years. It is now owned by the 53-year-old Mr Watts and the other directors, and he says that turnover last year was around £400m. His own wealth has been put at £40m.

Pertemps is still a private company, but the staff's shares will be bought and sold via an employee trust. They will be valued every year by auditors and checked by the Inland Revenue. Pertemps said staff would have to sell at this approved value if they left the company, and would not get tax relief if they sold within five years. Staff will be able to put around 10 per cent of their salary into buying shares, and in return the company will double the amount of shares they buy.

The bumper payments depend on the company keeping to an expansion target of 25 per cent a year, which Mr Watts says it has been able to achieve in the past.

Mr Watts is also a shareholder in Media Square, a media consultancy, whose share value has fallen from around 60p in 2000 to 8p today. Recently, chairman Chris Swan had to quit Media Square to fight a Department of Trade and Industry action to ban him as a director. This relates to his conduct as chairman of Finelist, the car parts giant that collapsed months after it had been sold by Mr Swan.