Medco Solutions, a tale to be told

​The Michelle Mone, PPE Medpro contract story has dominated the press & PMQ's over the last week. At Open & Candid we decided to revisit our favourite covid contract story, the one where we fail to comprehend the lack of "mainstream" media coverage. This is an incredible story of a company that didn't even exist, when Boris Johnson was announcing the first lockdown in the UK.  

Medco Solutions according to company house records, was incorporated on the 26th March 2020. The company had two directors, Ross & Luke Robertson, brothers from the Abingdon/Didcot area in Oxfordshire, England. Over the following 20 months, Medco Solutions were awarded seven contracts with the Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC). The first three contracts were for PPE, aprons, visors & masks. The final four contracts were for Lateral Flow Tests/Rapid Antigen Tests (LFTs/RATs). In total the contracts add up to close on £950 million, for our Canadian followers that is almost 1.6 billion dollars and for our Australian followers over 1.7 billion dollars.
The links to the contract details can be found below, with the contract start date:

1. Aprons - 7th May 2020 
2. Visors - 5th June 2020
3. Masks - 20th June 2020
4. LFT/RAT - 17th June 2021
5. LFT/RAT - 22nd September 2021
6. LFT/RAT - 31st December 2021
7. LFT/RAT - 23rd February 2022
The question has to be asked. Did the directors of Medco Solutions have previous experience of supplying PPE or Tests? So we investigated the background of the two brothers.

Ross Robertson, 40, prior to the pandemic worked for an office design company called Unispace Global Ltd. He was a client executive for the European market of Unispace, working on the redesign of office complexes for clients such as, Boston Scientific. He also held a directorship of Studio Forge Ltd, the coding on companies house suggests that Studio Forge are a specialised design & architectural company, we were unable to find a website and the accounts for end of 2019 showed just £4,621 in assets. Ross Robertson's linkedin profile at the time showed him working for both Unispace & OGP. OGP we believe to be a company he incorporated in September 2020, called Oxford Gate Properties Ltd. This company is currently dormant. He started a new linkedin profile in 2020. This new profile does not show him working for Unispace.

Luke Robertson, 31, is similar to his brother, with having different linkedin profiles. At the start of the pandemic, his profile stated he was a director of Snaffle Solutions Ltd, prior to that, Luke worked in various roles for Reading based office design company, Office Principles. Snaffle Solutions appeared in 2020 to be a online ordering platform, predominantly for ordering building materials and was linked to fellow Snaffle Solutions director Daniel Reiner's family business, Bryson Products Ltd. Companies house records confirm this, showing him as a director of Snaffle Solutions Ltd from September 2019. Interestingly his new linkedin profile shows that prior to Medco Solutions, that Luke worked for a company in Malmo as commercial director. The company was called APL Limited and specialises in medical goods. We believe that the APL Ltd actually refers to a company he incorporated in September 2020 called Atwood Properties Ltd! 
We have always found it intriguing, that clearly neither brother had any experience prior to the pandemic in supplying PPE. Their background suggests that they both worked for office design companies for most of their careers.
So how did two brothers with, very little experience, a recently incorporated company and were not fast tracked via any VIP channel, win almost £950 million worth of covid related contracts?  Could their previous companies give any answers?

In an unusual coincidence, Unispace Global, the office design company, also won over £670 million worth of PPE contracts! They were on the Conservative government's VIP list for PPE. They won contracts for Gloves, Masks & Coveralls. To confuse matters some what, Unispace Global was sold in late 2020. The PPE contracts however switched to a newly incorporated company called Sante Global, with a number of ex Unispace directors being the directors of Sante Global. In a further twist to the story. Ross Robertson is listed as a shareholder of Sante Trading company Ltd, a subsidiary of Sante Global!

There is a further twist in the background, with Luke Robertson having previously worked for Office Principles and that Ross Robertson worked for Unispace Global Ltd prior to the pandemic. Office Principles is owned by Cyril Parsons, the same Cyril Parsons, who co-founded Unispace, also his son Sebastian Parsons was a director of Unispace and is now a director of Sante Global. 

It still doesn't end there though. There is one final twist! In September 2021, the UK government awarded a LFT contract to Harrogate based Sterilab Services Ltd. Sterilab were one of the companies named by the government that was channelled via the Test & Trace VIP route. 
The contract awarded to Sterilab Services was worth over £271 million. The link to the contract is called   CCRID_854_DPS_LFT_Order_Sterilab_Sante_20210906, when you open the contract to investigate the details, it shows that the supplier is actually Sterilab Services & Sante Global.
In summary, Medco Solutions were awarded almost £950 million of contracts, Unispace Global were awarded over £670 million of contracts, Sante Global are a joint supplier for a contract worth £271 million. In total that is almost £1.9 BILLION! Companies that specialised in office design and were not PPE suppliers prior to the pandemic. We are not suggesting that there is anything untoward, by any of the companies named above. We just find it an amazing story and we still fail to comprehend, how the "mainstream" media have not given this story & the recognition to all involved.