Smart operator

After masterminding an 80-fold gross written premium increase since the early 1990s with Smart and Cook chairman Geoff Cook, Paul Meehan talks to Richard Adams about maintaining core values through growth periods and the challenge of what, he says, are serious shortcomings of the incoming regulator

Smart and Cook hit the headlines in March after its three-year search for the right venture capitalist resulted in 3i supplying a £57m boost - a process that, managing director Paul Meehan says, took the firm's focus off acquisitions. However, he is quick to add that S&C, firmly under the auspices of himself and chairman Geoff Cook, is now firmly back on track and back to one of its traditional core roles as a Yorkshire-based consolidator.

This has seen S&C already complete two deals since 3i and