Personality of the Year: Alan Aubrey

As a business leader who does not seek the limelight, having his own achievements rather than those of his company singled out may not sit comfortably with Alan Aubrey. But the successes racked up by commercialisation firm IP Group’s chief executive over the past decade – culminating in the takeover last year of its peer Touchstone Innovations – mean that Aubrey is both a clear and deserving winner of the 2018 Global University Venturing Personality of the Year award.

The protracted battle to take control of its rival commercialisation firm kept IP Group in the headlines for much of last year, but speaking at the company’s recent annual results presentation, Aubrey said: “The integration of Touchstone with IP Group is proceeding to plan and we are confident for the year ahead and beyond.”

He added that the combination of the two businesses, in addition to the acquisition of fund manager Parkwalk Advisors in February last year, has helped to create a company which is “better equipped to find, invest and develop businesses based on science and technology”.

The firm’s latest results show it managed to bounce back from an $18.2m loss two years ago to post profits of $72m for 2017. The value of its portfolio practically doubled from $757m to $1.5bn over 12 months, with $475m of that increase derived from the Touchstone takeover, while the gains from its portfolio soared from $8m to $127m.

After spending several years as a partner at advisory service KPMG, offering guidance to fast-growing businesses in the technology sector, Aubrey co-founded Techtran in 2002. Techtran was the commercialisation partner to University of Leeds and, in the three years Aubrey was at its helm, oversaw the creation of 13 spinouts.

In 2005, the firm was acquired by IP Group – at the time listed on Aim, London’s alternative investment market, as IP2IPO – and Aubrey joined as a director before being named chief executive at the beginning of 2006. Later that year, the firm joined the main market of the London Stock Exchange, changed its name and also launched its first investment vehicle, the £30m IP Venture Fund, with support from the EU-owned European Investment Fund.

In the intervening 12 years, Aubrey and his management team have notched up a number of successes, spanning agreements with institutions such as University of Oxford and University of Bath to successful initial public offerings of several spinouts. These ranged from software firm Tracsis, which was spun out of University of Leeds and listed on Aim in 2007, to Queen Mary University of London-derived analytics business Actual Experience, which joined the same market in 2014.

Prior to the Touchstone deal, perhaps the most significant acquisition Aubrey had led for IP Group was the 2014 purchase of its peer Fusion IP, which at the time had exclusive commercialisation rights with Sheffield and Cardiff universities.

IP Group had bought a 20% stake in Fusion five years earlier, and Aubrey said the strength of the relationship between the two businesses had convinced IP Group that a takeover would be in both their interests.

Announcing IP Group’s $116m offer for Fusion, Aubrey said: “Together, we have greater breadth of coverage, enabling us to access a wider pool of intellectual property as well as improve our service offering to existing and potential research institutions both in the UK and internationally. We firmly believe that the enlarged business will enhance shareholder value.”

The purchase of Touchstone, however, was a much less straightforward affair, played out over the course of six months last year. Aubrey announced plans to acquire the company in May, but IP Group’s initial offer, valuing Touchstone at $650m, was rejected by its board.

Having established the support of a majority of Touchstone’s shareholders – but not yet its board, which had expressed serious concerns about the post-acquisition future of Touchstone staff – IP Group renewed its offer a month later. At the time, Aubrey said: “We believe that the combination of IP Group and Touchstone Innovations creates an international leader in IP commercialisation and a business that is greater than the sum of the two parts.

“The board recognises the skills and expertise of the employees of both companies and continues to believe that the combined group will lead to greater opportunities for team members on both sides.”

Over the course of the summer, IP Group increased its offer while also gaining extra support, including that of Imperial College London. As the founding shareholder of Touchstone, Imperial’s intervention was perhaps decisive. In a July statement, the institution said: “We are supportive of the strategic rationale of this transaction and appreciate the increased value for Touchstone’s shareholders.”

By September, IP Group said it had obtained the backing of shareholders representing more than 96% of shares in Touchstone and the deal was finalised a month later after the UK’s Competition & Markets Authority decided not to carry out a detailed investigation into the transaction.

All of this happened as IP Group went on to raise $260m to launch a subsidiary in Australia that will work with Monash University, Australian National University, University of Adelaide, University of Melbourne, University of Queensland, University of Sydney, University of Western Australia, University of New South Wales and University of Auckland. It has been busy building its team since then and hired Mike Molinari as managing director.

One may wonder if there is anything left to conquer for Aubrey, but if his track record and his accolade as our Personality of the Year proves anything, it is that his ambitions should never be underestimated – making him a valuable leader in the ecosystem.