Couple who built £9 million-a-year Belfast business win coveted industry award
07-September-2023
A Northern Ireland couple inspired to set up a care business after suffering bereavement and the financial crash of 2008 have scooped a major award.
Richard and Emily Magrath, owners of homecare company Caremark North Down, Ards & Belfast, are the recipients of a Great British Franchisee Award, the most prestigious accolade in the highly competitive franchise sector.
Their business has become the biggest in the 120-office nationwide Caremark network with the highest revenue, the largest workforce, and the most customers.
“We achieved profitable trading after six months and haven’t looked back since,” says Richard. “We employ 470 people, serve almost 800 customers, and have a turnover of £9million.”
Emily lost her mother to breast cancer when she was 17 and credits the experience with turning her into “a very people-orientated person”.
Richard was involved in the world of property before the financial crash of 2008 and says he had to brush himself down and start again.
“I was determined to work in a sector that would be as recession-proof as possible,” he recalls, “and that was one of the reasons we looked at the care sector and decided a franchise was the quickest way to market for us.
“Homecare is in demand – there is never a shortage of need. And, during Covid, our business actually enjoyed record growth, mainly due to recruitment levels being so high.
“People were unable to work their normal jobs during the pandemic, so we enjoyed great growth in the number of care assistants which enabled us to deliver more care hours.
“Once the pandemic was over, many went back to their old jobs, but we also kept many who simply fell in love with homecare and working with us.
“We’ve grown our business over 10 years by really valuing our team members who, as a result, stay with us and enable us to provide excellent, high-quality care to hundreds of people in our community.
“We and our teams talk often about surviving vs living, and living vs thriving. We ensure our customers live and thrive, not just survive, in our care.”
David Glover, the network’s Joint CEO, says the couple are an example to the rest of Caremark’s franchisees and even employ a full-time wellbeing expert to care for their staff.
“They run monthly Memory Cafes that are free to all their customers and help combat loneliness and isolation as well as providing something for them to look forward to,” he says.
“And they value their team to the point that they enjoy extremely low churn of staff – a monthly turnover of just one per cent which, when you employ 470 people, is an amazing feat.
“We expect them to be the first franchisees in the history of Caremark to deliver 10,000 hours of care in one week.”
• The Great British Franchisee Awards are run by whichfranchise, supported by Lloyds Bank, D&T, IBB Law, AMO Consulting and Chantry Group. https://www.whichfranchise.com/awards/