Profile - Paul Devlin

As soon as I walk through the door of Fletchers Group of Bakeries, I’m faced with a plate of delicious chocolate muffins.

It’s a new upmarket line the Sheffield-based company has developed and I’m happy to be a guinea pig.

According to finance director Paul Devlin, we are all eating a lot of cake at the moment. “When belts are tightened, people tend to have a little bit of a treat,” he says. “That treat generally means chocolate, it means confectionery-type products. So I advise you to take a bite and then you will understand that’s what recession tastes like.”

The Northern Irish director describes himself as direct and determined but with a sense of humour “if I can’t have a laugh it’s going to be a very long day.”

Are those the same three words that other people would use to describe you? I ask. “I think there would be a few more “f”s and “b”s in there,” he replies. “When you work in this kind of environment its not for the faint-hearted. It’s important that you’re very clear with people what you expect, it’s important you give them the tools to deliver and the level of support they require to make it happen.”

It’s this attitude that landed him his current job.

He was part of a new management team brought in to turn Fletchers around following a devastating fire at the site in 2006, which destroyed 40 per cent of its production capacity.

At the time of the fire, Northern Foods, which had owned the company since the 1990s, was considering which of its businesses to dispose of and in January 2007 Fletchers was sold to private equity group Vision Capital.

However, the issues arising from the fire had not been dealt with and it was down to the new owners to put a recovery plan in place and appoint a new management team to pick up the pieces. It appointed a new managing director, Stephen Holding, along with two general managers and Devlin as finance director.

Devlin, 45, joined the company in July 2008 having held various senior financial roles at companies including Tunstall Healthcare, Oakdale Holdings and Geest.

At the time, the business was making a £10m operating loss on a £91m turnover. The turnaround was painful, resulting in 273 job losses.

“There were a number of issues that needed to be dealt with,” Devlin says. “After the fire the capacity wasn’t there and unfortunately there were some redundancies.

“Quite clearly there were some significant actions that were required in order to turn the business around. In that process it’s important to keep your nerve and have the backing of your investors, and through that period that’s what we had – a clear plan and the fullest backing of Vision Capital in the process.”

The management team set about turning Fletchers from an historic family firm into a 21st century food manufacturer supplying the major multiples. As well as the redundancies, the recovery plan included increasing margins. “It was important that we weren’t busying ourselves with things that weren’t generating profit and generating cash,” he says.

Within a year losses were reduced to £2m even with fewer sales.

However, just as Fletchers was starting to see some progress, the financial crisis turned the economy upside down. “It really could not have been timed worse. Just as we were starting to see daylight, the lights went off,” says Devlin.

“At that point our sales growth slowed down significantly and between 2009 and 2010 we grew by £2m. It was a difficult period.”

Fletchers invested in two consultancy projects for its Sheffield and London sites in a bid to make them more efficient.

Last year the company, which employs more than 800 permanent staff, posted an operating profit of almost £500,000 on a £93m turnover, and the figures are forecast to grow further this year.

But it continues to face challenges. Price inflation costs have escalated and wheat has increased by 60 per cent with a major impact on margins.

There are four businesses within the group. Fletchers Sheffield, La Baguette Doree in Barnsley, Kara Food Service in Manchester and Grain D’Or in London. Eighty per cent of its turnover comes from blue chip customers including Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Marks & Spencer. Products include Tesco Finest croissants and M&S focaccia.

Its food service division supplies schools, local authorities, fast food outlets, restaurants and bars.

The company invested over £3m last year, including a new plant at its Sheffield site to make English muffins, which Devlin says is a significant growth area.

This year, Fletchers is hoping to free up funds to modernise its Sheffield site by selling part of its land for a Sainsbury’s superstore, which is currently going through the planning process.

A lot of its new developments are commercially sensitive. It recently joined forces with a fast food chain to introduce a new sub roll and is also developing something with a leading retailer, which Devlin says could lead to £1.5m extra sales this year, although he can’t give further details.

Devlin grew up just outside Belfast. “It was a little bit messy but it was an interesting environment to grow up in – quite insular and I suppose that’s what drove me to move away to university,” he says.

As a boy he wanted to become a doctor but fracturing his spine in two places during a rugby accident a few months before his A-Levels meant he didn’t get the grades he needed for medicine and he ended up studying medicinal chemistry at Loughbrough University instead. He spent a year at giant drug maker Eli Lilly in Basingstoke as part of his degree and after looking at his options, Devlin realised he could pursue a career in accountancy.

He joined Northern Foods as a graduate finance trainee and went on to work for a number of firms, including fragrance and cosmetics firm Coty in Amsterdam where he learned to speak fluent Dutch. He went on to work for Geest in Leuven, near Brussels, for two years before moving back to the UK to work for Geest in Selby in 2001.

It was there he met Holding. Together they came up with the idea of creating produce importer International Produce, based in Normanton. “We wrote the business plan and presented the idea to Asda and gained the business for Geest,” he says. The firm is now wholly owned by Asda and is the biggest single importer of produce in the UK.

Devlin lives with his wife, Clare, in York with their children Niamh, 13, and Michael, four.

He is looking forward to the year ahead. “This year is going to be really exciting for us. We’ve got some really good ideas, which we think are going to deliver great value for the business and we’re going to continue to grow.”

Paul Devlin Factfile

Title: Finance director

Date of birth: July 19, 1966

Education: Belfast High School; degree in medicinal and pharmaceutical chemistry at Loughbrough University

First job: Barman

Favourite song: Alternative Ulster, by Stiff Little Fingers

Car driven: BMW

Favourite film: In Bruges

Favourite holiday destination: France

Last book read: De vrouw die met vuur speelde, by Steig Larsson (The Girl Who Played With Fire)

What I am most proud of: My children and learning to speak Dutch