investing etc. 0026

The journey edition: The Cobbler, the romance of the sea, The Perimeter, Bridge of Sighs, 4Imprint, Anpario, Bunzl, Card Factory, Churchill China, Eleco, Judges Scientific, Spirax, Warpaint

Jun 14, 2025

This post is about journeys: Those businesses take, and those we take.

Epic!

Let’s get down to business. If you haven’t come across Epic, congratulations! It probably means you are well. It may also mean that you are not a health worker, or related to one.

I recommend this Business Daily interview with the founder and chief executive of Epic Systems, Judy Faulkner, now 81. Under her leadership it has grown into a $5 billion revenue business that holds patient records on about 80% of the US population and patients in 15 other countries.

Of its 16,000 employees, seven or eight are sales people. Epic literally built the system, and the customers came. Judy Faulkner says Epic “in no way” does anything to maximise revenue, it tries to maximise accuracy.

She is so determined to keep her business away from “money men and shareholders” that she has developed a unique succession plan. When she’s “dead and gone” it hands control to her husband, three children, and five designated Epic employees.

When it comes to overseeing the business, they are instructed to vote in the best interests of healthcare organisations and patients, then in the interests of Epic, then the employees of Epic, and then shareholders.

Three chief executives of Epic customers are designated “protectors”. They’re job is to sue anyone that does not follow the voting rules.

Most business and economic theory puts shareholders first and Epic reminds me of John Kay’s small book on Obliquity - the idea that the direct route to success is not always the most obvious one.

The secret of their success

Straying only slightly from the world of business, we met the founder of a well known chain of sports shops on the upper slopes of The Cobbler, one of the Arrochar Alps near Loch Lomond.

We had visited the top of the mountain and were on our way down. She was passing on her way up.

The Cobbler is famous because of its distinctive profile, proximity to Glasgow and Edinburgh, and because there are easy scrambles near the top. Unbeknown to us at the time, there is also a daring challenge: to climb through the eye of the Cobbler’s needle. It’s a hole in the summit with scary aspects.

The entrepreneur, who at this stage was just a fellow mountain walker, asked about the eye of the needle. To her credit, she barely raised an eyebrow when we said we had seen it but not thought to go through. Neither did she show any disappointment when, with the weather closing in, we declined the opportunity to walk back up there and have a go.

Instead, we continued down to the cafe in Arrochar, where we celebrated our deeds with hot chocolate and carrot cake. It was only when our fellow traveller walked into the same cafe with her husband and co-founder, that they told us their story.

Ever curious, I asked them the secret of their success. He said “hard work”. He had already had told me a number of legal and financial tales. It sounded like hard work. She opened the first store and her passion was evident. She said, “The team is so lovely”, “People stay for a long time”.

In two sentences she had vindicated my obsession with employee retention. It's the means, though revenue and profit might be an end.

Romance of the sea

Sashaying fully now into the outdoors.

After The Cobbler we stayed a few days on the tiny slate isle of Easdale, just a few minutes ferry ride by open boat from the island of Seil, itself separated from the mainland south of Oban by a narrow stretch of water. You cross over to Seil by the small stone Clachan Bridge, which is also known, ironically and literally, as The Bridge Over the Atlantic.

This was the most romantic of getaways. The island is tiny, fringed with flooded slate quarries and piled high with flat slate stones. The pools are great for swimming in, but the island most famously hosts the World Stone Skimming Championship. Fortunately for us it’s in September, so barring the odd walker, we skimmed and swam in solitude.

Easdale is so small, a walk of any distance or with a destination like a pub or cafe in mind, requires a ferry trip. This is no problem at all because the ferry sails every half hour. An issue can arise, though, if the boat is on the other side of the sound. It doesn’t cross if it has no passengers.

You can summon the ferry if it doesn’t look like it’s coming by pressing on two large fist-sized switches simultaneously. First time, you don’t know what will happen. It feels like you might detonate something, or receive a mild electric shock.

The truth is only a little better. We signalled the ferry on the way back from the pub one stormy night. After a bit of “you do it,” “no, you do it,” I did it.

My attempt at self destruction didn’t page the ferryman, or send a subterranean signal. A deafening klaxon went off and a strobe light in the waiting room window started flashing. They were still going when the boat arrived.

The Perimeter

We walked the perimeter of the island of course, but only a few weeks earlier we had attended the launch of Quintin Lake’s The Perimeter. It is a beautiful coffee table book telling the story of his walk around our island, the big one, in words and pictures.

I have now followed his story four times: in real time on Twitter, as Quintin re-lived it while editing the countless photos he took, also on Twitter, at the launch at Stanfords, the map and travel book shop in Covent Garden, and now, as I read the book one county at a time, dailyish.

When I finish I think I might read it backwards, reliving the trip in reverse!

Research

Winkworth, an estate agency franchise, and Churchill China, a manufacturer of tableware for restaurants, pass 5 strikes. I discover Spirax, the manufacturer of industrial equipment, has a hand in making your breakfast.

Cosmetic brand Warpaint, Eleco, a supplier of software to the construction industry, and “celebrations destination” Card Factory catch the eye. Spirax must deliver on its green economy promise and margin recovery to reclaim quality stock status.

Score

The term “multibagger” does not really do the long-term growth in Judges Scientific’s share price justice, but I wonder how much more scalable the business is.

It’s not often you will hear me utter the word’s “screaming buy”, but despite being more circumspect about tableware manufacturer Churchill China’s prospects I think the shares are undervalued.

I used to think promotional goods manufacturer 4Imprint’s destiny was almost entirely in its own hands, until tariffs exposed its China dependency.

Natural animal feed additive manufacturer Anpario takes a giant leap forward after two steps backwards. It’s a well managed and financially strong business that has profited through thick and thin, but it operates in a capricious market.

Trade

After a two-month hiatus, I resumed trading by increasing the size of the portfolio’s holding in Bunzl, a global distributor of dull but essential items to businesses, hospitals and organisations of all shapes and sizes.

etc.

Guilty as charged. I attended a panel debate among academics at St John’s College Cambridge on post-neoliberalism, mainly because we would walk out over the famous Bridge of Sighs.

Here’s a gratuitous picture: