The Search: Who is David Mairs?

Sep 3 2007 Liverpool Daily Post

David Mairs, founder of The Search _320

DAVID MAIRS first realised he had been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug at the tender age of 10.

His local newsagent gave up delivering newspapers in the neighbourhood so David moved quickly to fill the gap in the market and set up his own delivery service.

"I would buy the papers in bulk and employed a group of school friends to act as my paper boys," he said.

"I realised how much money I could earn by working for myself – far more than I had ever earned as an employed paper boy."

Mr Mairs took that early experience into his adult working life, and by the age of 32 he was the youngest and highest-paid regional manager of a national firm of loss adjusters. It was at this point he decided he wanted to become the "master of my own destiny".

He added: "The loss adjusting sector mirrored the banking sector at the time, in that there were a number of major players that dominated the market. There just wasn’t room for a new entrant.

"I’ve always enjoyed a chal- lenge and I believed the market was ready for a revolution.

"I conceived and nurtured a business which generated a turnover of £100m. The com- pany expanded nationally and internationally and, in 1996, was awarded accredit- ation by the UN as a result of work done assessing the damage in Kuwait after the first Gulf War." After 12 years when the company was widely regarded as one of the top four adjusting firms in the country, Mr Mairs decided the time had come to explore other opportunities, and in September, 2005, he sold the firm to its management for £62m.

He subsequently founded international asset manage- ment company, Dominique Faversham Group. DFG has capital ventures to the value of £50m as far afield as Poland and Montenegro; closer to home, 80 accommodation units for students at Liverpool universities, a joint venture to create a private airline offering exclusive charter facilities, and interests in the leisure and care sectors.