Sibling entrepreneurs take on cosmetic surgery
By Carryn Dewing, published 1 year ago in Leadership.
Entrepreneurial brothers Surindar and Nick Dhandsa are carving out a niche in the cosmetic surgery business. After selling their nursing home chain for approximately £320m, the brothers opened London’s first purpose-built cosmetic surgery clinic.
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Three years later, Nick Dhandsa is non-executive chairman of West London Clinic while Surindar is the managing director. He jokes the less Nick is around, the better. “He doesn’t come in on a day-to-day basis,” laughs Dhandsa. “I don’t want him here all the time – he just interferes!”
Brotherly bickering aside, the Dhandsa brothers certainly see eye-to-eye when it comes to business. They launched nursing home specialist Associated Nursing Services (ANS) in 1982, growing the business to 48 centres and up to 4,000 employees across the UK. It wasn’t long before ANS caught BUPA’s eye, and the brothers sold the group to the healthcare giant in 2005. “I should have gone off and sailed the world or something,” Surindar sighs.
Instead, the Dhandsa brothers navigated their way to their next venture. “By that time, we’d been approached by plastic surgeon Dai Davies, who wanted to build a purpose-built cosmetic clinic where everything happens in-house: from the consultation to clinical assessment to surgery and after-care,” Dhandsa says.
It took 18 months to get the business up and running but, since opening its doors in 2005, West London Clinic has treated more than 2,000 people and has a turnover of £3.5m. “There’s a very healthy demand for plastic surgery – particularly at the high-end. We’re very specialised and exclusive,” explains Dhandsa.
The clinic has even featured in hit TV programmes such as Extreme Makeover UK, Make Me Perfect and Plastic Fantastic.
Dhandsa anticipates a healthy future for West London Clinic: “We want to create the perfect model clinic, so we can roll that out and create a brand that becomes established as the place to go for an up-end procedure where you’ll be handled very professionally.”
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