Pocklington tyre company Bond International on road to success after Scottish takeover deals
Bond International chief executive Charlie Bond tells Fiona Haran about expanding the Pocklington tyre business following a string of Scottish acquisitions.
Bond International doesn’t do things by halves. Last year, it went from zero acquisitions to six in the space of just six months as part of a strategic plan to expand into Scotland.
The Pocklington-headquartered tyre wholesaler acquired a trio of businesses in February from Halfords Group: Stepgrades Motor Accessories (trading as Viking Wholesale Tyres), Birkenshaw Distributors, and McConechy’s Commercial Fleet Services.
This was followed by the takeover of Spring Distribution (Scotland), and its 200,000 sq ft warehouse in Bathgate, as well as the purchase of Easityre and Fife Autocentre. Charlie Bond, chief executive of Bond International, says the deals will enable the company to strengthen its customer service levels nationwide.
“Going into Scotland was always part of the plan,” he says. “The tyre wholesale industry is service-driven. You’ve got to provide same-day delivery and you can only do that if you’ve got warehouses within range of garages.
"Our service to Scotland was on a next-day or two-to-three-day basis. We needed to provide a national service and get established quickly. We set up the infrastructure in three months, which is no mean feat.”
Bond International was founded by the late Reg Bond in 1966. Aged 22, Bond had been left blinded in one eye by a splinter of flying metal while working as a mechanic and used the £350 he received in compensation to set up his own car repair garage in Pocklington.
He went into business with his father and formed R & R C Bond, selling car parts to other garages.
He soon realised there was more money to be made in selling tyres than fixing cars and in 1971 set up R & R C Bond (Wholesale), trading as Bond International.
Today, Bond International is run by his sons, Charlie and Greg, and employs around 900 staff with distribution centres across the UK.
The brothers laid the groundwork for the acquisitions in 2019 when they led a management buyout of their siblings, Mike and Lindsay, and formed a new board of directors.
“We needed to change the team as the business was stagnating,” says Charlie Bond. “We promoted internally and brought in some external directors.”
Bond International’s turnover is expected to exceed £500m by 2026 – a significant leap from £181m in 2019. The Halfords deal sprang from a long-established relationship.
“We’ve dealt with Halfords for years and were already in contact with them on a daily basis,” says Bond. “They wanted to be able to provide a better service to their sites and were looking for a one-supplier solution.
“Our business handled 16.8 million tyres last year and the delivery of our ‘on time in full’ KPI average of 99.6 per cent.
“We believe this is the best in the industry and it was one of the contributing factors to the deal.”
Bond credits its professional advisory team for creating a smooth process. “Clarion [solicitors] were the real players that helped us get the deal done,” he says.
“We were presented with issues but they also gave us solutions, which is half the battle with professionals. A lot of people are good at telling you what the problems are but not how to get the deal done.”
DSW (Dow Schofield Watts) oversaw the financial due diligence.
“They identified the red flags so that we could deal with them quickly rather than making them showstoppers,” Bond says.
“They kept it nice and simple. When you start over-complicating transactions, that’s when it gets messy.”
The company also benefited from its experienced board which includes commercial director Simon Ewbank, chief financial officer Scott Christian, and head of legal Duncan Rann.
“Three of the board members have done acquisitions outside of Bond, so we were clear on which way we needed to go and we knew the pitfalls,” says Bond.
“This allowed us to negotiate a deal [with the targets] before advisers were involved.”
The Spring Distribution transaction, completed in April, had a different motive to the others. “We acquired it for the property,” says Bond. “The nature of the business was completely alien to what Bond does in terms of packaging and sales, so we shut that business down and built our wholesale operation into it.”
The company sought alignment with Easityre and Fife Autocentre, which it acquired in June. Bond says: “We liked the management teams and, because of the distance and time it took us to get to Scotland, they were able to keep an eye on the operations. We’ve let those businesses continue as usual. If it wasn’t broken, it didn’t need fixing. Rather than taking their staff on, it was just a case of transferring their customer order books.
“Some of those pieces have slotted into our business seamlessly.”
Bond says the team is open-minded about the future. “We’re considering opportunities as they present themselves, as long as they help us achieve organic growth or market share gains,” he says.
The company is currently working on the construction of a new head office on its existing site at Pocklington Industrial Estate, following approval by East Yorkshire Council.
The new building will comprise four floors of offices and meeting rooms on 30,000 sq ft and will accommodate 200 staff. Facilities include a gym, yoga studio, golf simulator and games room. Bond International’s rapid expansion and market position creates a competitive edge against what is a challenging economic backdrop. “The amount of talent available to our business has never been as high, and it helps us scale. We’re no longer perceived as a small player,” says Mr Bond.