Akontec.

Akontec's core work is running operations for clients — support desks, back office, process delivery — from centres in India for businesses abroad. Mart Ventures exists because a retail store is two jobs bolted together: a shop floor, and a continuous analytical operation across buying, range, margin and loss. The second job is what we already do.

It is also the job most independent store owners do worst, and not through carelessness. They are behind the till. Nobody serving customers for ten hours a day is also renegotiating supplier terms, claiming promotional allowances, or noticing that one category's margin has slipped two points over six weeks. That work is where a thin margin is defended, and it is entirely visible in the data.

So the offer is two halves. We build the store properly, coordinating solicitors, surveyors and contractors for everything regulated or physical. Then we run the numbers side, within an authority schedule you set, taking a share of profit so our interest and yours point the same way.

We also say no more often on this venture than on the other three. It has the largest physical footprint, the thinnest margins and the least remote leverage of anything we build, and it is genuinely unsuitable for an owner who wants a dividend rather than a business.