Saracens

Nigel Wray

After graduating from Bristol, worked for a few years in merchant banking, before starting own business publishing financial newsletters. Having nearly gone bust the business recovered in time to become one of the first companies to float on the then USM (now AIM) Market whereupon we effected a merger with a company called Carlton Communications, in video communications (Adam and the Ants video etc) which in turn became Carlton Television the owners of Thames Television and Central TV.

That was very well run by Michael Green so thinking that I knew something about property, which I didn’t, purchased a controlling share in a small property company, Gilbert House Investments, that, given a favourable climate, went on to purchase another much larger property company and then purchased Singer & Friedlander the merchant bank where I had begun my career.

Retaining my shareholding I then moved on and this time found somebody, Nick Leslau, who was very able at property and over the next 20 years we built up a substantial property company called Burford Group which we then sold and formed Prestbury which is now essentially represented by two quoted companies on the Stock Market one called Max Property (now sold) and the other Secure Income Reit.

During that time I had the great fortune in the late 90’s to bump into Domino’s which without doubt is as predictable a business as I have ever come across. This went from being a relatively small company to being by my standards a very large company and only last year after 17 years did I finally exit. We have now metamorphosised into holding stakes in over 20 quoted and un-quoted companies. In every case we are very long-term investors and in most cases have been invested in the company for most of this century.

Perhaps the thing I’m most proud of however is over 20 years we have taken Saracens Rugby Club to being a respected name in this country and across much of the world, as European Champions twice over. The Saracens Foundation, our charitable arm, now connects with over 70,000 children per annum in the field of sport and education and are simply trying to help people become better people.

Mitesh Velani

Mitesh is a Chartered Accountant who trained & qualified with Deloitte’s Banking & Financial Markets division in 2006. Client base included Royal Bank of Scotland, Morgan Stanley & Merrill Lynch.

After a 6-month secondment to the Corporate Finance arm of Deloitte Mitesh left the Company to become Director and Co-owner of Moonlight Foods Ltd, a start-up in the FMCG sector. Mitesh joined Saracens in 2008 as Group Financial Controller and moved to Finance Director and Chief Operating Officer before taking on his current role of Chief Executive Officer. He is a trustee of the Saracens Multi-Academy Trust for government funded Saracens High School.

Kamal Shah

Kamal Shah qualified as a chartered accountant in 1985. He also qualified as an Associate of the Institute of Taxation and worked in the taxation departments of Ernst & Young and PKF specialising in corporate taxes.

Since joining Nigel Wray over 21 years ago, he has worked on a number of transactions assisting in the flotation and fund raising for a number of companies. He sits on the board of a number of private companies.