Existing Specialties directors Nigel King and Gary Mitchell have joined the company’s chairman Mark Plews in acquiring the business from administrator Duff & Phelps.
They have moved the company from the group’s former City Road offices in London to Croydon. The new management hopes the move will give the UCM Timber (Specialties) business a brighter future and end the uncertainties created when it was caught up in the wider UCM Timber group’s collapse into administration earlier this year.
Unlike the group, the Specialties business was technically not in administration, was in profit and had separate banking arrangements.
“This part of the business continues as the panel products part of the business which it has always been,” Mr Plews told TTJ. “It was a panels business when it was MCI Timply before joining UCM.
“We hope to grow the business. It will take time to get the business back to the sort of levels that it used to enjoy in the past.
“Sales have not been as good as we would have liked because customers and suppliers have been nervous about the ownership [while the adminstrators were responsible for UCM Group].”
He admitted the current trading environment was very difficult. “We are not going to create the group again and become a £95m turnover company, that’s not our purpose.
The strategy is to grow the panels and specialist products business to its former levels and beyond. As we are profitable, so it will grow.” Mr Plews said the company retained its strong connections with its traditional worldwide suppliers in wood-based panel products and other specialist timber products.
