Richard Fawcett, managing director at Palgrave Brown (UK) Ltd, has sold his stake in the company four years after buying in to a management buyout.
Since that BIMBO – a deal worth nearly £10m in September 1998 – turnover has risen from £25m to £54.4m and the secondary buyout selling price has shot to £30.6m.
In March this year Mr Fawcett led the purchase of dandf Garden Products from receivers but maintained Palgrave Brown would remain the main activity of his life.
Seven months on he said: “If somebody offers you a lot of money you tend to get diverted. I had always only intended to be at Palgrave Brown for three to four years and the management got together a package which suited everybody.”
He remains chairman at West Yorkshire-based dandf where he intends further investment.
Keith Rutherford, who was involved in the original MBO, has taken over as managing director at Palgrave Brown and will take the Chorley-based engineered timber specialist into the second phase of its long-term growth programme.
Mr Rutherford said: “Now we have the firm foundations and a solid base, our next phase of focus is on organic growth and further improvements to service and quality.”
The growth, he said, included filling gaps on the company’s roof truss manufacturing map. He added: “I would not like to specify an area, but we are always open to acquisitions.
“We now have a good portfolio including timber merchanting, and the stairs side of the business is growing very fast. We want each of our product divisions to be compatible with each other.”
Since 1998 Palgrave Brown has grown from 11 national sites to 19 and more than doubled turnover as part of its strategy to become a £100m operation.
