‘We’ll get our fair share…’ The Wates pair hatching a plan to create a £250m fit-out business

By Dave Rogers2025-11-17T06:00:00

Source: Jessica Ewing

Lee Phillips and Steff Battle on picking up the pieces after ISG’s fall and why the new business can disrupt the industry in the right way. They speak to Dave Rogers

“I never thought it would be the end of me…” Lee Phillips had turned 54 a month before ISG collapsed into a heap last September.

He had been there a few weeks shy of nine years – an earlier stint in the 1990s when the firm was known as Interior and headed up by David King accounted for a further three – when the business, having long since teetered, finally toppled. Overnight, he found himself without a job having been in charge of the fit-out part of ISG, the one considered to be the jewel in its crown.

“I had to take some time out, to play things over,” Phillips admits, “but I’ve always believed in myself.”

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