YP Business Profile: Mike Richards, Arran Isle

However, that is what Mike Richards did when he joined building supplies firm Heywood Williams Group, now known as Arran Isle Ltd, in 2007.

Many businesses in the sector did not survive the storm but after some tough months and difficult decisions Mr Richards and his team were able to restore the company to profitability by 2010.

Today the firm is active all over the world and serves all of the top 50 housebuilders, with a headcount that is more than 1,000 people across the globe and a turnover in excess of £245m.

Not surprisingly, Mr Richards looks back on the salvation of the business as the finest moment of his career.

“I joined in October 2007 and then suddenly the world fell apart.

“A lot of our business goes into residential housing. So the market collapsed by 60 per cent.

“We didn’t know where the market was going and some of our customers were going to the wall.

“It was bloody. We really needed to manage the cash. We lost £4.1m in 2009.

“I was a really challenging time but we succeeded in keeping the whole thing together. We flipped from being a PLC to being privately owned.

“It was about getting through that period, keeping the team with you and telling everyone we are going to get through this.

“We told everyone ‘this is a market issue. This business is strong. We have a great position in the marketplace with great people and products, we just need to get through it’.

“And we did.

“Looking back I have to say all credit to the board. We were very fortunate that all of my fellow directors were non-political, there was no point scoring. You learn a lot about people when times are like that and they gave me a lot of support.

“In 2010 we made a profit of £1.3m and since then have been on the upward track.”

The business left behind in the aftermath of the financial crisis is now styled as an international distributor of branded building products.

However, in reality, there is far more to the business as it increasingly becomes a manufacturer.

The firm currently is subcontracting the manufacture of those products to predominantly the Far East and in China after driving through strong relationships with Chinese suppliers.

Currently, Arran Isle has its own sorting centre in China with 18 personnel on the ground in the city of Ningbo in the south eastern Zhejiang province. It also has a small manufacturing facility in China and its whole operation in the Far East sees it own the intellectual property and tooling, as well as managing the quality control, to give it control of the whole supply chain, end to end.

Despite the international profile the business is still very much a Yorkshire firm. Based in Elland in West Yorkshire it includes fellow Yorkshire company Safestyle among its most loyal customers, having done business with them for nearly two decades.

And naturally, working across so many territories, has meant that Mr Richards has very much had to keep on his toes when it comes to different cultural sensibilities when doing business.

“What I have learned in the role is the cultural dynamics,” he said.

“It is very different dealing and motivating individuals in a large complex business in the Mid West of the USA to then quickly change gears and deal with a small business in the Baltics or in Denmark.

“And then obviously there is the time difference. You know you have got China which is seven hours ahead and then the US five hours behind. So you have got manage that, particularly when it comes to finance, because you are managing individual finance teams, reporting to different MDs.

“Winning hearts and mind and managing them is interesting. You have got to be a bit of a chameleon, in terms of how you can change your own style and attitudes to those different individuals.”

Mr Richards joined Arran from Northern Foods where he was a divisional finance director.

The political and economic shocks of 2016 have predictably reverberated around the business, as he explains.

“Because we have this international dimension we find that if there is a problem in one part of the world we are usually compensated elsewhere.

“We keep waiting for all of our businesses worldwide to fire on all cylinders at the same time but that just hasn’t happened yet.

“Our agenda post-Brexit comes from the massive devaluation of sterling, we buy huge amount of goods from Far East, which means we have a challenge. Along with competitors we are compelled to make price increase.

“This is not something that we take lightly

“What is fortunate is that this is a level playing field, we are in the same boat.

“It is no price war, we are calling it a price surcharge in the marketplace. I think that 2017 will be a tough year but on the flipside we have a US business that is working well.”

Mr Richards was honoured at last year’s Yorkshire Finance Director Awards when he won the award for Business Turnaround.

He said: “It was a surprise. I have never been involved in anything like this before. This is not about me. It is a recognition of the reliance of the business and its teams.”

The FD Awards were sponsored this year by BDO, Sewell Group, Lockton and Walker Morris.