INEOS - Building a brand through sport

You can't look at the news at the moment without seeing INEOS involved in sport in one way or another.

Five years ago, INEOS by their own admission was 'the biggest company no-one has ever heard of'. It was started in 1992 by Jim Radcliffe and two colleagues. They bought distressed assets in the chemical industry, working out how to make them profitable at the bottom of an industry cycle so that they were very profitable at the top of the cycle. It now has a turnover of $65billion and has expanded into automotive (INEOS Grenadier), healthcare (INEOS Hygienics) and clothing (Belstaff).

INEOS has an interesting corporate structure. It remains privately owned so is able to think long-term and strategically without being hamstrung by the short-term, quarterly demands of The City and Wall Street. It runs its forty business groups as individual business, each with their own Chairman and CEO who are expected to run it as if it was their own business. This enables INEOS to have an extremely lean head office with around 40 staff - none of the bloated corporate structures you see elsewhere.

Recently, INEOS has become much clearer about its brand - based on their founding principles of Grit, Rigour and Humour, and their values of Safety, Excellence, Manners, Challenge and Winning. Like many founder-led companies, these principles and values are a pretty straight match for the personal brand of Sir Jim Radcliffe - what you see with INEOS is what you get with him. You can see the INEOS brand guidelines on their website - an interesting read if that's your thing! I did some work with INEOS several years ago as they developed their early brand thinking.

In recent years, INEOS has acquired a number of sports teams:

- 2017 Lausanne Sports FC in Switzerland

- 2018 Ben Ainslie Racing, now the INEOS Britannia sailing team

- 2019 OGC Nice Football team in France

- 2020 Sky Cycling Team, now the INEOS Grenadiers

- 2022 a third share of the Mercedes F1 team

- 2024 acquired 27.7% of Manchester United Football Club.

The investment in sports started when INEOS were headquartered in Switzerland for a period. This was the start of a run of acquisitions fuelled by Sir Jim's love of sport and the financial means to be able to do something about it. But from this, it's clear that INEOS have been able use their sporting properties to build their brand with a much wider audience whilst they are expanding into consumer markets with their cars, clothes and healthcare products.

This is no ordinary sponsorship though. As they own the team, they effectively own the media space. With one look at Britannia's sails in the Americas Cup at the moment, you see INEOS, The Grenadier and Belstaff getting prime time coverage.

The really interesting part of INEOS' growing sporting empire is the behind-the-scenes collaboration. The Mercedes F1 Team helped design and build the boat for the Americas Cup. The cyclors who pedal hard to provide the electrical power for Britannia trained with the cyclists of the INEOS Grenadiers.

In football, whenever you see Sir Jim pictured at Manchester United, you will see Sir Dave Brailsford next to him. Sir Dave, once the architect of multiple cycling victories, is now on the board of Manchester United after a period of time working at OGC Nice. INEOS are doing at Manchester United what they do with the distressed assets they acquire in the chemical industry; they are cutting costs and working out how to make it successful at the bottom of a cycle. Sport is cyclical, you can't remain at the top forever. INEOS understand this and they are taking the steps needed to to put the club on the right footing for future success. That will be painful, as shown by the recent redundancies and the fuss about Sir Alex Ferguson losing his ￡2million a year ambassadorial role for the club.

So INEOS are building brand through sport, not in the classic sponsorship route but through team ownership at the very highest level of multiple sports. They are strengthening those teams through collaboration in a way that hasn't been done before. And I wouldn't be surprised if their core businesses aren't taking the lessons from high performance sport back in their own business operations.

It will be fascinating to see how this all evolves in the future.

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