In this episode of Stake and Soul, Barry speaks with David Sproxton, co-founder of Aardman Animations, the Bristol-based studio behind Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, Morph, and Chicken Run. For more than 50 years, David and his co-founder Peter Lord built one of the most beloved creative companies in British history. In 2018, they had the opportunity to sell to a major studio. They chose not to. Instead, they transferred Aardman to an Employee Ownership Trust, handing control to the people who had built it.
In this conversation, David talks about what drove that decision, how a creative business holds onto its soul when the financial pressure to sell can be enormous, and what it actually feels like to say “you have control” after four decades at the helm.
What’s covered in this episode:
- How David and Peter met at school in the mid-1960s, discovered animation through a borrowed 16mm clockwork camera, and sold their first piece of work to the BBC’s Vision On for £25.
- The origins of the Aardman name, registered at Companies House in 1972 as something between a schoolboy prank and an accidental brand.
- Why Aardman said no to Jeffrey Katzenberg when DreamWorks offered to buy the studio outright, and the deal structure they chose instead.
- What David observed watching the ad agency Gold Greenlees Trott get absorbed by a US conglomerate, and why that convinced him a trade sale would destroy the thing that made Aardman worth acquiring.
- The book “Beyond the Corporation: Humanity Working” by David Erdal, a 2011 EOA conference talk, and how they spent several years researching the EO model before engaging advisers.
- The John Lewis trust model and why it suited Aardman better than direct shareholding, including a tax-efficient bonus arrangement secured for long-term freelancers through HMRC.
- How the partner rep group evolved across three iterations, from an unwieldy group of 10 to a focused body of five, and how the role of that group has sharpened over time.
- Monthly financial workshops, bimonthly town halls, and the challenge of communicating financial information to people across very different roles in the business.
- The games department closure, the announcement of forthcoming trading losses, and how transparency in difficult periods is managed when partners have been told it is their company.
- David’s view on AI: a powerful tool for administration and search, but one that averages rather than imagines, and one whose generative output is already feeding on its own mediocrity.
Moments to listen out for:
- David’s account of that first wet Sunday afternoon when he and Peter pulled a clockwork Bolex out of a cupboard and played with paper cutouts, not yet knowing where it was headed.
- The moment Aardman announced its transition to employee ownership and received hundreds of emails from people inside Disney, DreamWorks, and Sony saying “if only.”
- His description of the away days where he would take questions from the floor and the question that kept coming up: what happens when you and Peter retire?
- The phrase he used on transition day, borrowed from his time learning to fly gliders: “you have control,” and what it cost him emotionally to mean it.
- His CEO confessional: the Tortoise and Hare feature film that had too many legs on it, that he believes could have been saved, and the goodwill with the crew that took a long time to rebuild after it was cancelled.
Quickfire highlights
- Employee ownership is: the only way forward.
- Biggest EO surprise: the reaction from people inside the big US studios. Hundreds of emails, all saying the same thing.
- Leadership insight: at a certain point, you have to stop being a backseat driver. Giving someone control means giving them control, not giving them control with an asterisk.
- Book recommendation: “Beyond the Corporation: Humanity Working” by David Erdal.
For more than 50 years, Aardman has grown a global business from plasticine and people, while keeping ownership firmly in Bristol. Interest from overseas never disappeared. David talks about how that independence was protected, and what it took to let go when the time came.
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