Managing director buys out Bricklink co-founder

Mr Currie bought Leeds-based Bricklink from co-founder and chairman David Monkhouse for an undisclosed sum. Bricklink has offices in Horsforth and Bellshill, North Lanarkshire, employing 19 people over the two sites.

Mr Currie, who joined the business in 1999 and became managing director in May 2009, said he is “very optimistic” about the future of the business.

He said that with the recent appointments of Mick Roberts as northern divisional director and John Flavell as Scottish divisional director, the intention is to increase sales coverage. He added: “We are looking to increase the sales forces in both offices over the next year with perhaps one or two people coming on board.”

Bricklink was established in 1988 by Mr Monkhouse and former director Martyn Green. It supplies materials to the both social and private housing market and has presence in the education, retail and commercial construction sectors.

Mr Currie said he expects next year to be “flat”, but added: “I think the customers we have will do better than they did in 2011 and I think that as a result we will do better than we did in 2011.”

A key growth area for the firm will be social housing, said Mr Currie, who added that by 2013 there should be signs of the private housing market getting better.

He added the firm will look to develop other forms of cladding material, but said: “We will never go away from our focus which is our bread and butter and that is brick and stone.”

Funding for the deal was provided by Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance with the Leeds office of Walker Morris advising the bank.

Mr Currie said the company was able to get backing from the bank as he has proved over the last two years he could turn the company around. He said the bank could see his “open approach”. He said: “Within two years we turned from loss-making to profit-making.”

The business achieved pre-tax profits of £50,000 in the year to April 30, 2011, compared to a loss of £140,000 in the previous financial year, said Mr Currie. At the height of the market, in 2007, the company was turning over £10m, but when the crunch happened turnover dropped to £6.5m. Now its turnover is at £7.5m.

When Mr Currie became managing director he said he had to look at ways of achieving cost savings, and all staff took a temporary 20 per cent salary cut, meaning none had to go.

In addition, profit-related pay was introduced to sales staff. Mr Currie said: “The main thing we wanted to do was to get the salesmen out in front of people as much as possible. There’s no point sitting down and saying the market is bad and no-one is building. We had to go and source the companies we could deal with and maximise the work we were doing with them. The fact that we started partnering with companies was a major way forward.”

Baker Tilly Corporate Finance oversaw the management buy-out of the company. Hamish Morrison, who led Baker Tilly’s corporate finance team, said: “David and Calum have together established a very strong business in one of the toughest sectors in the UK. It shows, once again, that good companies exist in all sectors of the UK economy and when you combine this with a first class management team there is still funding readily available to support MBO transactions.”

Young & Partners LLP provided legal advice to Bricklink’s management team. Mr Monkhouse will remain within Bricklink.

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