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Playing for high stakes
Page 22
Page 23
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Steve Walker built his company on a single high-risk venture. Dominic Perry meets a man who put his money where his heart is.
For a haulage boss who unashamedly describes himself as "old fashioned" it's slightly unnerving to have Steve Walker to admit, virtually in the same sentence, that his success has come solely through gambling everything on an unknown risk. It's not quite the same as admitting that his business has only grown thanks to capital input from the 10.15 race at Doncaster, but it's still a surprise, particularly in a corner of the industry where being careful with your money is a revered trait.
For those who don't know the company, or who haven't seen the bright red trucks on the road, S Walker Transport specialises in bulk waste transport, particularly waste paper and cardboard destined for the burgeoning recycling industry. But it hasn't always been this way.
Walker comes from a Worcestershire farming family (in fact the haulage business still operates from a farm) and seemed destined to follow his siblings into the fields, hut even from an early age Walker was being pulled in another direction: "I enjoyed farming but there was something else I'd always wanted to do — farming just didn't excite me enough.
"As a kid I'd always played with toy trucks— I looked in my mum's house recently and Christ, there were a lot of toy lorries there... more lorries than toy farm equipment to be honest.That probably tells you something" Walker's offices are still decorated with a large number of model trucks; some presented to him by friends in the industry as birthday presents.
A small family argument finally pushed him into setting up a haulage firm on his own. Unsurprisingly he started out with livestock transport but when he could no longer see a future in that he went to work for a nearby operator. After a few years there he again set out on his own, returning to the agricultural sector to haul corn for feed company Dalgety, before he was handed the opportunity to turn in a different direction.
Gambling his future
A phone call from a former employee offering work transporting wastepaper led to a need for new, more specialist equipment, but with the price of a tractor unit and walking-floor trailer topping then 00,000 mark it was a big commitment to make.
"Moving into the recycling market was one hell of a gamble on my part. I saw an opportunity to get into a niche market where there didn't appear to be anyone else involved. Thankfully once I'd taken the gamble the work just snowballed.
"I was convinced that it would work, but from a financial point of view it was still a big risk. Spending £120,000 on a unit and a trailer is a big investment whichever way you look at it, particularly when you don't lease but buy outright," he says.
The financial risk of entering a capital-intensive sector of the transport industry is offset by the fact that others will have been put off by the resources required. Indeed, until very recently you could probably count the number of operators plying their trade in this sector on the fingers of one hand.Then Devon-based Greendale was snapped up by much bigger general haulier Gregory Distribution, and even a company the size and profile of Eddie Stobart has begun taking tentative steps into the sector. Worrying times, perhaps?
"I'm more worried about the arrival of Stobart than Gregory to be honest." says Walker. "I just don't know what it will do to the rates. When someone comes in from totally outside it makes us nervous.
However, he offers incomers a few words of caution: "A tractor and trailer costs f121,000 in all-it's a crazy investment. I suppose the idea in my head was that it was a specialised thing and such a huge amount of cash that very few people would bother to follow suit. It's certainly a big investment for a firm like Eddie Stobart in an industry it knows nothing about.
"Maybe for it to get involved in a sector it has no knowledge of is a big gamble."
Grass roots feel
However, it appears to be a gamble that has paid off for Walker. The fleet has grown from a handful a few years ago to 35 trucks generating a turnover of around £4.5m with a 3% profit margin. Expansion has been a rapid but Walker hasn't lost sight of his roots:"I don't want to end up running a big company because lose touch with my employees. It would just never interest me.
"That said, when I started out I never wanted to be an owner-driver either I was never after the glory of owning a truck,! wanted to build a company I was proud of."
He's certainly proud of his trucks and the way they look:"I still whinge at the drivers if they've parked up for the weekend and not parked the trucks tidily.
He's not lost touch with his agricultural heritage either (among other things his wife farms sheep as a hobby) and oddly, for such a highstress industry, uses it as a means to relax: "I still have ties in farming though and if Fm stressed at work then I'll go and sit on a tractor and plough or cart silage for a day or so just to get away from it all.
"Bouncing up and down a field all day is my way of switching off it's better than golf anyway!"
Conversely, in times of need his wife sometimes helps out with the transport business: "She can run the traffic desk better than I can. but at the end of the day she prefers her sheep," he explains. Perhaps they don't answer back as much she doesn't say.