MAYANK PATEL’s father played a big role in shaping his son’s aspirations. A former banker who moved his family from Uganda to Zambia to escape Idi Amin’s regime, he started a business importing agricultural equipment and would let his 12-year-old son help out after school. The experience made a big impression on the boy.
“From a young age I always wanted to get into business,” said Patel. “My friends wanted to go into banking or accountancy or become doctors but that never excited me. I wanted to stand out and do something that was worth remembering.”
At the age of 16 Patel was sent to Britain to study at Schiller International, the American university. After four years there he enrolled on a two-year MBA course at Birmingham university at the age of 21. It was a big mistake.
He said: “I was probably the only person in the class who had no practical business experience whatsoever. There were times in class when I was totally lost.”
At the end of the first year his teachers advised him to get some work experience before returning. He never went back. He worked briefly for a firm of accountants before getting a job in 1991, at the age of 23, with a derivatives-trading firm in the City. He loved it.
“It was like being chucked in at the deep end and not knowing how to swim,” he said. “You had to be on top form every single day to survive.”
He was so determined to be a success that he would talk aloud to himself on the way to work to psyche himself up. “I would tell myself to have a positive attitude,” said Patel. “People probably thought I was mad. But it was very important that I did well because I was trying to prove to my dad that I could do it.”
So when Patel received his first month’s pay — £400 — he was so embarrassed at how little it was that he cried. He said: “When I finally told my dad I broke down and said I am really sorry but this is the best I can do. I think I am a bit of a failure.”
His father, however, was forgiving. “My dad said that the most important thing is to believe in yourself.”
So he stuck with it and stayed in derivatives for another four years. By the age of 28, though, Patel decided he wanted to run a business of his own. So he and a colleague left their jobs and used their savings of £8,500 to start a company selling foreign exchange to small and medium-sized firms.
He said: “There was a huge difference between the exchange rate a large corporate client could get for foreign exchange and what a small- business client could get. I was convinced there was a huge gap in the market I could fill.”
Patel had, however, taken on a big challenge. “We were competing with large £1 billion institutions yet all the money we had in the world was £8,500. We had no marketing muscle, no branding and no financial track record.”
Undaunted, Patel bought some import-export directories and started calling the finance directors of small firms to persuade them to use his company to provide their foreign currency.
“I produced a three-page document which I would fax page by page to 100 companies every day. I would work until 1am, but by the end of the week I would have 500 potential clients,” he said.
After approaching a dozen different banks Patel also managed to get Lloyds TSB to agree to provide his company with favourable exchange rates. Currencies Direct took off. But with success came competition and soon there were several rival firms in the small-business sector, which led to a price war.
In 1999 the papers were full of stories of Britons buying property overseas. Patel quickly realised that it was an ideal market to move into.
He said: “It was not rocket science, it was about putting two and two together. Budget airlines had started up in Europe, sterling was very strong, interest rates were low, and there were lots of overseas property exhibitions taking place.”
He took a stand at one such exhibition and discovered there was a lot of interest in the services his company was offering. Then he realised there was a bigger opportunity. “I stepped back and said, let’s think intelligently here. Why are we just targeting the consumer who is buying the property? Why aren’t we talking to estate agents and developers?” By this time Patel’s business partnership had foundered. So he bought his partner’s share and started expanding on his own, building relationships with estate agents and developers overseas.
He also decided to open an office in Alicante, Spain. His hunch paid off. Currencies Direct’s turnover will be £750m this year and is expected to be more than £1 billion next year, of which more than 80% comes from people buying property overseas. The company now has six overseas offices — in Australia, India and South Africa as a well as Spain.
Patel, who owns 63% of the company, said the secret of his success is perseverance. “The word defeat has never existed in my vocabulary. I honestly believe that you can achieve whatever you want as long as you believe in it 100%.”
Now 38 and married with two children, Patel’s one sadness is that his father died before he was able to share his success. “My only regret is that the one person I really wanted to show it to is not here.”
