From Pilgrims to Mandate: An Interview with James Dixey

From Pilgrims to Mandate: An Interview with James Dixey

James Dixey — Founder and Managing Director    ·    8 min read    ·    James Dixey Limited

James Dixey founded Pilgrims Language Courses in 1973, built it over three decades, and sold it in the early 2000s at what was understood at the time to be a record multiple for the sector. Twenty years later, after taking on the first language school owner who asked him to broker a sale, James Dixey Limited is one of the most established specialist M&A advisors for owner-managed regulated businesses in the UK and Ireland. This is the long-form conversation about how the firm came to be — and why the founder still answers the phone.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

•  Pilgrims began after a Voluntary Service Overseas year teaching English in Zambia and vacation jobs in Cambridge language schools that revealed how poorly much of the sector was run. When a friend at Deloitte’s suggested, "Why don't you start one yourself, James?", he did — launching Pilgrims in Canterbury in 1973.

•  Pilgrims reached £1m turnover in its third year. When the business was eventually sold, the buyer — a UK consolidator of language schools — was attracted not only by its financial performance but by its reputation for innovation and the teacher-training arm that had become a distinctive asset.

•  Broking began by accident: a language school owner called a few years after the Pilgrims sale asking for help selling their business. The deal achieved a higher multiple than Pilgrims itself and launched a second career. Today, the firm advises owner-managed regulated businesses across the UK and Ireland in the £3–15m enterprise value range.

•  James's key advice to business owners is simple: before doing anything else, write down why you are 100% certain you want to sell and what you plan to do afterwards. Most owners neglect both questions, particularly the second.

Considering a sale in the next twelve to twenty-four months?

The first conversation is always confidential and never costs anything. James and the team will be honest with you about what your business is realistically worth, what the buyer universe looks like, and whether now is the right moment — or whether the more useful answer is to plan over a longer horizon.

Book a confidential call  →

Most M&A advisor profiles read the same way. A list of transactions, a track record line, a few impressive logos. James Dixey's is genuinely different in two respects: first, he built and sold a sizeable business in the sector he now advises in, so the conversation with a prospective client starts from inside the seller's chair rather than outside it. Second, he came to broking by accident two decades ago and has run the firm with the same discipline ever since — small, specialist, no-sale-no-fee, and willing to turn down more mandates than it accepts. This piece is the long-form version of that story, told in his own words and edited lightly for length.

Part one — Pilgrims, from the beginning

How it started

After leaving school, I spent a year in Zambia with Voluntary Service Overseas, teaching English at a Marist Brothers Mission School deep in the bush near the Malawi border. I loved it, then returned to Canterbury for university. During the holidays, while living near Cambridge, I took vacation jobs teaching English in local language schools.

I had no formal teacher training but discovered I was naturally good at it. I modelled my approach on two inspirational teachers I had known at school — John Hunt in Geography and Jimmy Temple in French — and students responded well. What struck me, however, was how poorly many of the schools were run. Demand for English in the late 1960s and early 1970s was so strong that students arrived regardless.

A close friend working as a management accountant at Deloitte suggested I start a language school myself. So, in 1973, I did. I chose Canterbury because I had been happy there as a student.

The first few years

Demand for English in the 1970s was enormous, but success was far from guaranteed. Every year brought the anxiety of waiting to see whether bookings would arrive.

Looking back, the business worked because I got the fundamentals right early. Canterbury was attractive and affordable for overseas students. Research showed that language schools made their profits in summer and lost money through winter, so I launched with summer schools only. I negotiated use of the University of Kent's facilities during vacation periods, giving us purpose-built capacity at modest cost.

In the winters, I travelled internationally recruiting agents to send students to Canterbury. I also recruited the best teachers I could find, often travelling to watch them teach before offering a position. Enthusiasm, energy and strong people did the rest. Pilgrims Language Courses launched and grew rapidly.

The hardest thing that wasn't obvious

One of the most difficult decisions came in the third year when I hired my first full-time employee, Mario Rinvolucri.

Mario was an exceptional teacher and had helped me plan the launch of Pilgrims. He worked with me during the first two summers while remaining employed elsewhere, but eventually his employers required him to choose. I could not really afford him, but I hired him anyway.

It was the best decision of those early years.

Mario built an international teacher-training division within Pilgrims, developing courses, magazines and books while delivering seminars around the world. He shared my belief that learning English should be enjoyable, and the teacher-training business he created later became one of the two assets the eventual buyer specifically wanted.

The moment it became a serious business

There were two moments.

The first came when my accountant completed the first year's accounts and remarked to my father — then chairman of Lloyd's of London — "Mr Dixey, I believe your son James has a business here."

The second came in 1976 when turnover reached £1 million in only the third year.

In hindsight, Pilgrims succeeded for the same reasons successful businesses usually do: a product customers genuinely wanted, competitive pricing, excellent staff and leadership that cared deeply about quality. The fundamentals never change.

"Mr Dixey, I believe your son James has a business here." — the accountant to my father, after drafting Year One's accounts.

Part two — Selling Pilgrims

Why I decided to sell

After thirty years, I felt I had done my best and was unsure whether I had the appetite to do another thirty.

As the company expanded, I also found myself spending more time dealing with personnel issues than building the business. We lacked dedicated HR expertise, and it was not an area I particularly enjoyed or excelled at.

Why the buyer paid what they paid

The buyer was a successful UK consolidator of mainstream English-language schools. They wanted Pilgrims for two reasons beyond financial performance.

First, they wanted our reputation for innovation and creativity in language teaching, which would elevate the perceived quality of their wider portfolio. Second, they wanted the teacher-training operation Mario had built — the courses, magazines and books — because it was genuinely scarce and difficult to replicate.

They paid the price I asked. At the time, the deal was widely understood to represent a record sector multiple, although the precise figure remains confidential.

Importantly, Pilgrims was never formally marketed. The buyer approached me directly while I was still deciding whether to sell, and the process moved quickly.

What I would do differently

With twenty years of hindsight as a broker, the answer is obvious.

I would obtain broader advice on valuation before negotiating and enter discussions with a realistic market figure in mind.

Instead, I calculated what my wife and I needed financially to never have to work again and accepted it when offered. Later, I heard the buyer would likely have paid materially more.

That experience shaped how I advise clients today. The first thing I provide is an honest indicative valuation before they commit to a process. Sellers who understand realistic buyer expectations almost always negotiate more effectively than sellers focused solely on what they personally need.

I worked out what we needed and accepted that when offered it. I heard on the grapevine the buyer would have paid materially more. That experience is half the reason I run our processes the way I do now.

Part three — Why broking

How it actually started

Entirely by accident.

A few years after selling Pilgrims, someone called and said, "Dixey, you sold Pilgrims for a record. Will you help me sell my language school?"

I met them, liked them and found the challenge intriguing. We completed the sale at a higher multiple than I had achieved for Pilgrims — slightly uncomfortable personally but highly satisfying professionally. That first success convinced me to continue.

I did not analyse the market looking for a gap. I simply received a phone call, completed a deal and discovered I enjoyed the work.

Why £3–15 million

Initially, that was the value range in which most language schools operated.

As the firm expanded into care, education, fire and security, and other regulated sectors, the same range remained attractive. It is where many owner-managed regulated businesses sit: too small for large-cap M&A firms to prioritise properly and too complex for simple business-listing brokers.

That gap remains where we work.

Part four — How the firm works, and why

No-sale, no-fee

The reasoning is straightforward.

I expect to win, so I am comfortable earning most of our fees only when a transaction completes. The model has worked for over twenty years because incentives are aligned: we succeed when the seller succeeds.

We charge a modest engagement fee covering preparation work such as valuation, buyer mapping, information memoranda and initial outreach. The success fee is payable only upon completion.

Why education, and how the firm broadened

My deepest expertise remains education.

Pilgrims was an English-language school, and over two decades I have advised on transactions involving ELT providers, SEN businesses, independent schools, careers companies and educational technology firms. It is a sector where I know many buyers personally and where founder experience translates directly into useful advice.

As the firm has grown, colleagues have developed expertise in adjacent sectors. Care has become a major area, supported by strong M&A activity and regulatory similarities to education. Fire and Security, along with Testing, Inspection, Certification and Compliance (TICC), has also become an important vertical because recurring revenues, accreditation and industry consolidation create attractive acquisition dynamics.

Across all sectors, the principle is the same: regulated, owner-managed businesses in the £3–15 million range are often underserved by institutional advisers, while sector expertise materially improves outcomes.

When I turn a mandate down

There are three reasons. The first is size. If the realistic sale value is below £500,000, a full M&A process is usually disproportionate to the likely outcome. The second is certainty. If the owner is not completely committed to selling, the process will almost certainly derail. The third is trust. M&A transactions are intense, often lasting many months. If I do not like or trust the seller, the relationship will not work and the deal will suffer.

Three reasons I decline mandates: too small, the owner is not certain they want to sell, or I do not trust them. The third is often underestimated.

Part five — The emotional side of selling

The process is the same

Mechanically, I run transactions the same way whether a seller founded, inherited or acquired the business. What differs is the emotional weight. Founders who have spent decades building a company naturally carry more of it. Part of a broker's role is providing stability during a period of considerable emotional complexity while shielding owners from as much distraction as possible.

Cold feet

I rarely encounter genuine cold feet because I do not accept mandates unless I am convinced the owner truly wants to sell. The early preparation process — valuation discussions, indicative ranges and conversations about life after completion — is as much about assessing seller readiness as it is about assessing the business. Owners who become uncertain halfway through usually had not fully decided in the first place.

The one piece of advice I now give every seller

Be absolutely certain you want to sell. Write down, in your own words, why you want to sell and what comes next. Then seek serious advice about what the business may realistically be worth. Most owners do neither. The ones who do generally achieve better outcomes because they enter negotiations with clarity rather than assumptions.

Write down why you are 100% certain you want to sell. It is a five-pound exercise that can improve a five-million-pound transaction.

Part six — The sectors and the market view

What ties our sectors together

All of them belong broadly to regulated services. These are businesses where regulation, accreditation and often property play important roles in value creation, and where the buyer universe is relatively small and identifiable. Education, care, fire and security, TICC and similar sectors all share these characteristics. What links them is not the product itself but the structure of the acquisition process.

Where the most interesting deals will be in the next two years

Within the £3–15 million enterprise value market, specialist educational needs (SEN) stands out. Demand continues to grow, institutional buyers remain well funded and the supply of high-quality providers coming to market is limited. For owner-managers in the sector, the period through 2027–2028 is likely to produce highly competitive sale processes. Preparation will matter.

The factor most underrated by sellers

What happens after the sale. Most owners focus entirely on reaching completion, but completion is a transition, not a destination. The morning after the transaction is when the next chapter begins. Owners who plan that chapter carefully tend to look back positively on the experience. Those who do not often find themselves wondering six months later whether they should have sold at all.

Part seven — Close

What a good day looks like now

A good day is one that brings the firm closer to being successfully passed on to one of my children.

The succession question matters to me in much the same way legacy mattered at Pilgrims. The firm is not being built for sale. It is being built to hand on.

If you take away one thing

Write down, on paper, why you are 100% certain you want to sell. When. And what you are going to do next. The owner who has answered those three questions before they pick up the phone to any broker — including me — is the owner who gets the best outcome from the conversation that follows.

Legacy

If this firm is the second chapter, Pilgrims was the first. What I would most like to be remembered for is helping teachers make learning English enjoyable, particularly through Mario Rinvolucri's teacher-training work, which reached classrooms in around seventy countries. Students forget much of what they learn in six weeks. What they remember is whether the teacher was good. That was the question Pilgrims tried to answer. I think we answered it well.

Related: Why selling without an M&A advisor usually costs you money — the foundational piece on whether to engage an advisor at all.  (/insights/selling-without-an-ma-advisor)

Considering a sale in the next twelve to twenty-four months?

The first conversation with James or one of the directors is always confidential and never costs anything. We will be honest about what your business is realistically worth, who the buyers actually are in 2026, and whether now is the right moment to begin — or whether the more useful answer is to plan over a longer horizon and revisit when the preparation work has been done.

Book a confidential call  →

SOURCES

[1] Pilgrims Language Courses, Canterbury (founded 1973). Mario Rinvolucri's contribution to language teaching is documented in his widely-circulated ELT publications and teacher-training programmes, including the Pilgrims Teacher Training summer programme.

[2] Sector focus: regulated, owner-managed businesses in Care, Education (ELT, SEN, independent and prep), Fire & Security and Other Regulated Services, primarily £3–15m enterprise value, UK and Ireland.

GLOSSARY

Broking / Broker: Acting as a middleman who manages the sale of a business and finds buyers; the person who does this.

Business-listing broker: A broker who sells small businesses by advertising them on a website to a wide audience.

Cold feet: When a seller becomes nervous and reluctant to go through with a sale partway through the process.

Consolidator: A company that grows by buying up many smaller businesses in the same sector.

ELT (English Language Teaching): The industry of teaching English to non-native speakers, often through language schools.

Enterprise value: The total value of a business, including its debt, rather than just the value of its shares.

Indicative valuation: An early, approximate estimate of what a business might sell for.

Information memorandum: The detailed document describing a business that is given to serious potential buyers.

Institutional advisers: Large, established advisory firms that typically handle bigger transactions.

Large-cap M&A: Mergers and acquisitions involving very large companies.

Multiple: A number applied to a business's profit to estimate its value (for example, profit multiplied by the multiple).

SEN (Special Educational Needs): Education for children who need extra or specialist support to learn.

Tail (tail period): A period after the contract ends during which a sale to a buyer the advisor introduced still earns the advisor a fee.

TICC (Testing, Inspection, Certification and Compliance): Businesses that test, inspect and certify that products, systems or people meet required standards.

Valuation: An estimate of how much a business is worth.

Value creation: Actions that increase how much a business is worth.

Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO): A UK charity that sends volunteers to work on development projects abroad.

James Dixey Limited — Specialist M&A for regulated, owner-managed businesses in Care, Education, Fire & Security and Other Regulated Services.