Matthew Lynn finds private military contractors such as Colonel Tim Spicer — formerly known as mercenaries — responding to demand in a high-growth business sector
Sitting behind his smartly fashioned desk in one of the new, antiseptic office blocks that line London’s Victoria Street, Tim Spicer looks the very model of the modern entrepreneur. He talks smoothly about service delivery, market share and profit margins. If he were running a hedge fund or a new media company, you wouldn’t be in the least surprised. In fact, his business supplies tough blokes with guns. And a very lucrative trade it has recently become.
Eight years ago Spicer hit the headlines when his private military company Sandline International was accused of breaking UN sanctions and selling arms to Sierra Leone. According to the papers he was a notorious mercenary, a character who had wandered out of the pages of a Frederick Forsyth novel, toppling dodgy governments in hot countries.
And now? Like a khaki Keith Richards, he has moved from the wild fringes to become, if not quite the epitome of respectability, something very close to it. Sandline is no more. Instead, Spicer runs Aegis Defence Services, a security contractor with close links to government and valuable contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
‘There have been a lot of changes in the way this industry works in the past ten years,’ says Spicer. ‘What I was doing ten years ago was way ahead of its time. The catalyst has been the war on terror. The whole period since 9/11 has highlighted the need for a private security sector.’
Spicer’s journey is a parable for the whole industry. Ask anyone in the City what the highest growth sector of this decade has been and they might mumble about online gambling or biofuels or ring tones.
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