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06
Nov 2021
Hot Seat: navigating choppy waters at Ripon firm Wolseley
Few major employees in the Harrogate district have experienced more turbulent times recently than Wolseley.
The plumbing and heating merchants, which has a £1.8bn turnover, employs almost 5,000 staff globally, of which 270 are based in Ripon and 150 at a distribution centre in Melmerby.
Besides covid, this year Wolseley has been at the sharp end of Brexit and been sold to private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier and Rice for £308 million.
The man navigating the choppy waters is Simon Oakland, who has been chief executive of Wolseley UK since January last year.
Mr Oakland, who has a background in private equity, has been with the company in its various guises since 2012.
He doesn't hide how difficult the last 18 months have been, particularly for staff in Ripon. The site, which opened in 1971, provides support functions, including accounts, payments, IT support and HR and have such felt the brunt of all the changes.
The company, he says, lost customer focus when it integrated divisions in 2017. But a divisional restructure, completed in July last year, was the catalyst for recovery, he says.
The figures back him up. In the financial year ending 31 July 2020, Wolseley lost £250 million of sales. Profit, forecast to be £60 million, came in at £6 million, partly due to covid.
But recently published accounts for the financial year ending 31 July 2021 show £75 million profit – considerably up on the pre-covid £54 million figure of 2019. Mr Oakland says:
He highlights the acquisition of 32 branches of Graham Plumbers in July as evidence of recovery.
Brexit blues
Brexit has not affected demand but it has disrupted the supply chain by making it harder for small European manufacturers to import into the UK.
It's also created "real complexity" with exporting products to Northern Ireland, says Mr Oakland. The company now has to provide detailed certificate of origin forms and prove its products to Northern Ireland wont be moved on to the Republic of Ireland. He says:
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Until this year Wolseley was part of a FTSE 100 company called Ferguson PLC, which operates in the US, Canada and the UK. But its demerger from Ferguson and sale to Clayton, Dubilier and Rice led to huge change.
Private equity firms don't have the best reputations but Mr Oakland says:
Clayton, Dubilier and Rice fall into the latter camp, he says, and "bring real strategic insight". But it wasn't an easy sell to staff.
50 years in Ripon
Wolseley was founded in 1887, when Frederick York Wolseley launched the Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine. The firm expanded into manufacturing and in 1899, the first Wolseley horseless carriage went on sale in the UK at £120.
It acquired a number of heating companies in the 1960s. Today plumbing and heating account for £1 billion of the £1.8 billion turnover. Your home's boiler, pipework, bathroom fittings and gas and electricity meters could well have been made by Wolseley.
The company opened its Ripon office on Boroughbridge Road in 1971. The site reopened this year after a £500,000 refurbishment, which included a new learning and development suite for training courses. Mr Oakland says:
Mr Oakland was born in Dewsbury and his grandparents lived in Starbeck. He is based in Warwickshire and says he looks forward to his trips north:
He enjoys food and wine and tries to complete one or two triathlons each year. Training isn't easy when you're on the road three or four nights a week but after a period of upheaval, quieter times at Wolseley may be ahead. He says:
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