A North East firm which manages home emergency property insurance claims is aiming to win more, bigger and better contracts after putting expansion plans into action with the help of new outside investment.Preferred Management Solutions Ltd (PMS) is a full-service reactive maintenance and building services company, and works with property management businesses, insurance firms, individual landlords and large plcs to fulfil both planned and emergency property repair contracts right across the UK.
The Hebburn-headquartered firm, which also has offices in London, Leicester and Bradford, is investing in an upgraded bespoke job management system after working with regional fund management firm NEL Fund Managers to access £175,000 from the Finance For Business North East Growth Fund.
The new technology will enable PMS to fulfil repair contracts with greater efficiency and speed, and will provide the capacity it requires to build on the 500 jobs it currently manages every week.
Six new North East jobs are expected to follow in the coming months, taking the total PMS team up to 32, and at least 14 more are planned to have been created by 2018.
Founded in 2010, Preferred Management Solutions carries out emergency repairs on building and sites of all sizes through a growing roster of fully-vetted contractors who cover every trade. The company also launched its own self-delivery service last year, and runs a PMS-liveried gas division.
Tony Morrison, operations director at PMS, says: “The key to our expansion is having the capacity to fulfil the additional requirements that larger contracts bring with them, within the timescales and with the degree of certainty that clients rightly demand.
“We’ve built up a strong reputation in our industry and already work for a roster of impressive names, and the investments we’re making in further improving how we manage, monitor and deliver our services gives us the confidence and flexibility to take the business to the next level.
“The relationships we have across the industry are absolutely crucial when it comes to being considered for tender lists and contracts, and we’re working hard to strengthen the direct links we have with insurance firms, larger property management businesses and other specifiers.
“We’ve already added to the team this year, and our expectations are that many more North East jobs will follow as our expansion plans are rolled out.
“The options offered by the Growth Fund fit well with our particular requirements, and the NEL team helped us crystallise our business planning around how we could best use it.”
David Thomas, investment manager at NEL Fund Managers, adds: “PMS has a strong, scalable business model that has already shown how well it works, and the resources it now has in place provide the capacity required to do even more over the next few years.”
Established by holding fund manager North East Finance (NEF) in 2010, the £159.5m Finance for Business North East (FBNE) programme is a suite of seven venture capital and loan funds which provide investment for start-up and growing businesses in the North East of England. They will continue investing until 2016, and aim to support 950 companies and to create or safeguard almost 10,000 jobs.
For more information about NEL’s investment criteria, visit www.nel.co.uk or contact the investment team on 0845 111 1850.