Not that Sørensen appears willing to retire anytime soon. In fact, he seems to loathe the idea, and he has been named chairman of the merged company and pledged that the family will retain a 30% stake in the world's second largest security company for the foreseeable future.
When SMT went to meet the man who is taking Group 4 from private to public ownership, we found a down-to-earth businessman who was more interested in convincing us that it would be business as usual under Group 4 Falck rather than a man who appeared eager to cash in on the family's 100-year involvement in security.
A gene for talent?
One has to ask if there is a gene for security, because if there is, perhaps some clever scientist could isolate it by studying the Sørensen family. Jørgen Philip-Sørensen is third generation security specialist, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. His grandfather pioneered the family's involvement in security when he launched a guarding company in 1904 in Copenhagen. Working as a theatre director at the time, he was headhunted by an investor to establish a small guarding company in Denmark.
In 1934 the company, now part of the international service company ISS, established a security company in Sweden called Securitas AB. Sørensen's father, now involved in the security business, too, acquired the business and during the 1940s and 50s developed it into Europe's largest security business.
The family's approach to security has always been very much hands-on. Sørensen's father and later Sørensen himself both had to work their way up through the organisation, starting as security guards and then graduating into supervisory positions and management.
It has given Sørensen a grassroots feel for the business — no need for him to "return to the shop floor", like in the BBC TV series of the same name. For two years in the late '50s he worked as a security guard in the east end of Birmingham, at the insistence of his father who had done much the same. He claims to have enjoyed the experience, finding the job very stimulating and rewarding.
To illustrate his feel for the business, he describes what it was that he enjoyed about the work. "When you work as a patrol guard and have 100 premises to look after, you see the city go to bed, you see the nightlife and then the city waking up again in the morning," he says. "Most people only see the daytime part of the city, unless they are going home late from a party. That's the romantic part of it."
Then there is the fact that customers have put their trust in you. "You know that you have looked after that site," he says. "That trust people give you: it's nice, a good feeling."
During his days as a security guard, he faced some interesting situations. There was the time he stopped a man claiming to be the general manager from stealing a load of paint from an ICI depot, only to find out the next day that it really was the general manager who was repainting his house. "I got five pounds — about a third of the weekly salary then — as a premium," he says, because the general manager appreciated his vigilance, if not his timing.
Vigilance wasn't always a good thing. There was the time, again at ICI, that he found all of the Telex machines on. "I must say that I wasn't very acquainted with Telex machines," Sørensen says with just a hint of embarrassment. "I came in and saw them all ticking away. Oh, those idiots have left them on, I said to myself, so I switched them all off." Then he phoned the control room to report the incident. "They said, Sørensen, you'd better go and throw the switches back, ha, ha. That was all over the office...and I didn't get five pounds for that."
He enjoyed his days as a guard and claims he would still enjoy it if he were doing it today. He gives the impression that he would excel at whatever he put his mind to — like in the TV advertisement with the former heavyweight boxer Mohammed Ali in which he says that if he'd been a dustman, he'd have been the best dustman there ever was.
Ahead for business
But unlike most security guards, Sørensen was on track to take over the family business, and in the 1960s he was instrumental in establishing guarding companies in the UK and Belgium. In 1968 the UK companies, now numbering four, were amalgamated under the name Group 4.
You get a glimpse into the Sørensen family relationship with the story of how Sørensen's father came to sell the business. When he was ready to retire in 1974, he made his two sons bid for the business. Sørensen and his younger brother were short listed along with another Swedish company. Sørensen and his brother Sven won and on New Year's Eve 1974, in a bank, he met his father to sign the contracts.
"We signed the papers, and I was going to pay him the first tranche of money, but I only paid him half," Sørensen explains. "He said, that's only half the money — I knew you couldn't raise enough. And I said, but I haven't seen the shares yet. He had to send his messengers down into the vaults and come back with stacks of paper. I looked them over and then gave him the second cheque."
Sørensen and his brother took over the company, but five years later Sven wanted out, so they went through a "painful divorce process" which saw Sven take the Swedish and European part of the business and Sørensen take the UK and the rest of the world. "Soon after the deal was made, my brother sold the Swedish company — the family silver — to some investors who in turn sold it to some other investors." Which was how Securitas AB, today the world's largest security company, became a public listed company.
Obsession for detail
Sørensen continued to build up the privately-owned Group 4 business, through a legendary attention to detail. There are stories of him appearing at regional offices and asking detailed questions about the performance of certain contracts. "If anyone were to criticise me, it would be for getting too involved in details because I spend so much time visiting the customers and the staff," he says.
When he travels abroad to review the operating divisions, he takes a set of accounts and other paperwork, each division allocated an old-fashioned cash-in-transit box. He reads these on the plane so when he lands he can launch straight into detailed reviews with the local management. He admits that between this and going to see local customers, it doesn't leave him much time for sightseeing, but he seems to prefer it this way.
He attributes the success of his company to recruiting and retaining the right people. "If you have the skill to identify and recruit the right people, that's the right start," he says.
It's natural then to talk about how Group 4 chose its merger partner, Falck. Sørensen explains that the process of finding a partner started three years ago: "There were about six or seven companies in the champions league, and I wanted a position there. Looking around, I decided that Falck was the ideal partner for Group 4 for a number of reasons: similar cultures and we didn't overlap in many countries. It's not like two banks merging where you shut down half the branches." In fact, a company spokesperson has been quoted as saying the merger would probably result in an increase in staff numbers.
And the Falck merger opens up the possibility of spreading ideas between the two countries. In Denmark, Falck runs a number of privatised ambulance and fire services, so if the trend to privatisation continues, there is an opportunity to bring that expertise to the UK. Similarly, the experience of running privatised prisons in the UK could be transferred to the rest of Europe.
Chairman of the Board
Sørensen's role in the company will not be as hands-on as it used to be. On average he has spent 200 days a year travelling on company business, including four round-the-world trips to visit the far-flung reaches of the Group 4 empire. Not a young man anymore, he will take a less active role now, travelling "as needed".
Presumably he will spend more time at his home on the edge of the Cotswolds, where he has restored the traditional stone buildings, pursued a policy of "natural" gardening and built new facilities such as the famous training centre to be in harmony with the landscape.
Even so, for a man who has lived to work, retirement won't come easy and one suspects that it will be difficult to keep him at home. The fact that his private estate, his home, will continue to serve as the Group 4 international training centre and UK corporate headquarters speaks louder than words.
Source
SMT
