UK BUSINESS GROWTH & CONTINUITY WITH NCA ENTREPRENEUR DEAN CURRAN

A CAREER PATH SHAPED BY HARD WORK, LUCK & A STRONG NETWORK

Dean Curran was born in the UK and grew up watching his father run and grow his own electronics business. Many years later, when asked how he ended up in Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition, Dean said he very likely felt the calling to be an entrepreneur from that early childhood experience. “I always kind of knew that somehow, someday, I wanted to be running businesses,” he said.

In his early twenties, he took what seemed to be a detour: Dean pursued a degree in electronic engineering and then went to London to work for a bank. “I very quickly realized that wasn’t what I wanted to do,” said Dean. He spent a few years in different roles until 2006, when a family friend was looking for someone to run his small business as he prepared to retire. Dean was almost 30 at the time and decided to embrace entrepreneurship by taking on the role of Managing Director and working at that business for the next six years.

A few years after that experience, Dean was hired to succeed a second-generation owner of another family business in sensor manufacturing. He came in as the Operations Director and ended up as the CEO, spending seven years growing the business from ~10 million to 25 million in revenue. Simultaneously, in 2019, he also pursued his executive MBA at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School, during which time the company owner unfortunately passed away and the business was sold.

“During that sale process, I worked with three different private equity firms who were putting in bids alongside the management team to buy the business. So, I started getting a lot more experience in the due diligence process and M&A, particularly on the sell side,” explained Dean. He left the company not long after that, as it was bought by a large conglomerate, and he knew he preferred SMEs to large-scale corporate environments.

While he contemplated his next move, a chance encounter in April 2022 set him on a new path that he hadn’t considered. “I bumped into a University of Cambridge professor, literally in the street,” explained Dean. “I told him what I had been doing, and he asked if I had heard of Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition. Quite amazingly, despite having just finished my executive MBA in 2021, they weren’t yet teaching it in Cambridge, so I hadn’t come across it at all.” Fortunately for Dean, another alumni from his Cambridge program, Will Hunnam, had already chosen to pursue the ETA path in collaboration with NCA. The professor told Dean about Will’s experience and recommended he look into the NCA Program because he thought it would be a perfect fit. Dean went home and applied for NCA’s Program the same day.

UK-BASED SEARCH & ACQUISITION: GARNER OSBORNE CIRCUITS LIMITED

Dean’s search fund kicked off with NCA in April 2023, with a focus on UK-based electrical or electronic engineering SMEs. In July 2024, he successfully acquired Garner Osborne Circuits Limited in Newbury, England, a leading specialist in printed circuit board (PCB) manufacture, assembly and full-function testing.

With over 30 years of established history, Garner Osborne delivers UK market-leading PCBs that include rapid prototyping, small to medium-sized volumes, and large-volume offshore manufacture. Located in the M4 Corridor outside of London, the company is unique as it has specialist accreditations for the medical, aerospace and defence sectors. “I have been hugely impressed by the operational excellence and extremely high-quality PCB products that Garner Osborne manufactures, supplying a diverse range of customer sectors,” said Dean.

Garner Osborne had been facing a succession challenge and this transaction provided an exit for the former Chief Executive Mike Garner – who remains a minority stakeholder in the company – and his business partner Nigel Priest, with Dean stepping in as Chief Executive and co-owner. “The founders were approaching retirement and knew the business still had great potential. They were looking for someone with the drive to steer the company over the next decade,” Dean said. “It was the kind of succession challenge that ETA was born to solve and I am grateful to Mike for trusting me to continue his legacy.”

The structure and support offered by NCA’s ETA Program played a pivotal role in finalising the transaction, Dean added. “This deal would have been impossible without NCA’s support, in particular Albert Farreras and Isaac Leyne from NCA’s European M&A team, and Noora Haapaniemi from NCA’s Legal department,” he said.

“Ultimately, I’m an ops guy who runs manufacturing businesses, so I have limited knowledge of M&A and I’m not a lawyer,” Dean said. “Compared to a solo search, that is one of the things that really differentiates Novastone from everybody else. Nobody has the ability to be good at everything and having those professionals on the NCA side who are so highly skilled, so hardworking, and so diligent just makes it so much easier.”

Dean also credited NCA’s network of active searchers and CEO’s as a powerful resource. “There are so few people who have done search funds and, through the NCA Program, we’re all very well connected and share knowledge. That is an incredibly rare commodity and network to have access to, so it’s unbelievably valuable. It makes you feel like you’ve got a team of colleagues you can turn to throughout the process, which I found really proved this Program is unparalleled in comparison to anything else in the search fund world.”

Now that the transaction has closed, Dean has his sights set on the road ahead and his new CEO role. “I’m incredibly excited to be working with the teams at Garner Osborne to help carry the business forward for a bright future.” While he credits lots of hard work with getting him to where he is now, Dean is also quick to cite both luck and his network as key factors in shaping his career path.

“Meeting certain people at certain times of my life gave me opportunities and teachings I may otherwise not have had,” Dean added. “If I hadn’t done my executive MBA at the business school in Cambridge, I would’ve never met that professor, I would’ve never known who Will is, and I might still be as ignorant about ETA today as I was three years ago. I went into the executive MBA to learn more, and I certainly did, so I suppose in some ways you really can make your own bit of luck.”

For more information about Dean please visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dean-curran-7925b94/

For more information about Garner Osborne Circuits Limited please visit: https://www.garnerosborne.co.uk/