Sex case nurse launches new venture

KATE Bleasdale, the nursing entrepreneur who received the biggest-ever City sexual harassment case payout, is back in business.

Bleasdale, who last year became the first chief executive to fight a sexual harassment claim against her own chairman, has spent money from her £2.2m payout and 'a handful of millions from my personal fortune' to launch medical staff agency Healthcare Locums.

'It was a shattering experience and it was not easy to bounce back,' she said of her fight with Sir Tim Chessels of Match Group (formerly Sinclair Montrose), the medical staff company she founded. 'But at 42, I'm too young to retire.'

Bleasdale's new business has 5,000 doctors on its books at its Thames Medics arm, while the Eurosite Human Resources side provides physiotherapists and radiographers to the NHS.

'I'm putting my money where my mouth is,' she said. 'I'm using it constructively in what I know and what I am good at. Specialist healthcare staffing is a rapidly growing area and we intend to be at the forefront of the market over the next few years.'

Healthcare Locums has turnover of £23m, and she expects this to grow to £36m in 2004 with operating profits of up to £4m. Funding of £15.5m has been provided by Barclays Leveraged Finance.

Bleasdale also has 'a personal war chest of around £1m' that she plans to use to encourage other female entrepreneurs.

A nurse in London before launching into business at the age of 25 in the late 1980s, she went on to earn £200,000 a year, be worth tens of millions of pounds on paper and have 90,000 medical staff on her books. She led a management buyout of Sinclair Montrose in 1999 but was later ousted in acrimonious circumstances.

'I was fit, lively and healthy but then I became bloated physically and had to cope with turning mentally ill, but I'm glad I fought and I hope I can show you can come through the other side,' she says.

Bleasdale has bought 12.5% of media and PR agency Exchange Team since her sex discrimination and unfair dismissal case. With her partner in business and at home, John Cariss, she has also bought back software and staffing business Netengines, previously part of Match Group, for £200,000.