“It’s a big opportunity. For the last three or four years, we've probably been under-punching our weight. Now there’s a new management team, we’ve assembled great investment and I can use my experience to grow the business.

“We want to position ourselves as one of the leading players in the marketplace.”

The new jobs at Intrum, in Liverpool, will range from collection agents to data analysts and salespeople. “One hundred is our best estimate of the number of people we’ll need to take on,” said Savage. “There’s things that could happen to take it up to 200.”

Savage insists it’s too simple to say that Intrum will inevitably do better in a recession. Even in the good times, there are people who need to be chased for their debts – and, in the bad times, some shy away from credit commitments altogether. He said: “Equally, at the moment, people aren’t able to take out extended credit and people who have got cash or whose mortgage payments have fallen as interest rates go down are trying to pay their debts anyway. It’s a complex picture.”

The term “debt collector” may at first make many people think of bailiffs and doorstep collectors, but Savage says cash collection techniques are now much more sophisticated and focus on finding amicable solutions early.

The debtor is called a customer, and Savage says Intrum staff effectively have to do a “selling job” to persuade customers that repayments are in their interest.

“We’ve got to build a rapport and dialogue with people or organisations,” said Savage. “Once we’ve done that, we can offer flexibility in payment times. Ultimately the skill is trying to identify the people who can’t pay and the people who won’t pay. That’s when it moves from the amicable phase to where we have to seek recourse to the legal process. That’s an elongated and expensive process. It’s in our best interests, and certainly the consumers’ interests, to resolve it earlier. A CCJ can make getting credit in the future very difficult.”

Intrum must get the money – that is, after all, what it is paid for – but it does not want to alienate its clients’ customers.

Savage said: “The rub is that an organisation wants the cash but also wants to repair the relationship with its customers.

“We have to be the iron fist in the velvet glove.

“We’ve got to be tough because these people owe money but you have to be sensitive, particularly in the current climate, and emphasise customer care.

“They can then continue to be customers of the organisation they owe money to.”

alistairhoughton