1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164 
Youth in the driving seat
Page 42
Page 43
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
A young entrepreneur definitely going places is Darren Chapman who has built a thriving haulage business from a modest start in a back garden shed.
• Darren Chapman IS Lou young to hold an HGV licence, but he has already built a haulage firm which boasts 11 trucks and a £2 million turnover. Based in Belvedere, Kent, 20 year-old Chapman, who has just taken delivery of two 17-tonne Mercedes Powerliners, started his business at 16, having planned it when he was still at school.
Chapman now employs 25 people, including his father and grandfather. His company, DAC International (Darren Anthony Chapman), offers general haulage and warehousing, and has contracts with J Sainsbury and high street stores Anders and Etam, among others.
Planning to concentrate on the distribution of hanging garments, he has just spent £20,000 on mezzanine flooring in his warehouse and has bought a specialised garment supercube trailer. Chapman has also appointed an operations manager and given him the first company car.
The next step is to buy a depot in Birmingham by March 1990 for the 24hour service.
Chapman then wants to go into the Continent, first to Italy and France. He launched a twice-weekly service to the Channel Islands last month, to handle four contracts for electrical and clothing firms.
Having just registered as a limited company, Chapman expects his turnover to reach £3 million next year. Although he passed his CPC when he was 17, he will not sit his HGV test until August. He does not, however, plan to do much driving for the company, apart rom the occasional foreign trip.
TOO YOUNG
He started the company from virtually nothing in 1986, aged 16. when he bought his first commercial vehicle, a 3.5-tonne Ford Transit. for £350. Too young to drive, he had to employ a school pal, who is still one of his drivers today.
His first bit of business was with a mail order distribution company, as one of its subcontractors, delivering catalogues from Basingstoke throughout the UK. He set up an office in a garden shed, with a manual typewriter and telephone. "I thought I was well on my way," he says.
Chapman left school without qualifications. "My teacher warned my parents I would be a nobody," he remembers. However, he says he always had ambition and a keen interest in vehicles. At 14, he had worked out there was a living to be made running a van. His father was a lorry driver and, when he was a boy, Chapman would accompany him, "I've always loved the smell of diesel," he says.
After he set up on his own, the chairman of the company where his father worked was impressed with his interest in transport and offered him a job as a van boy. Chapman was still running his own van for the
catalogue conipany, but three months after passing his driving test, he asked if he could operate his van for the other firm, a freight forwarder called Europa.
At first, Europa's chairman Andrew Dare turned him down, as he felt he lacked experience. But three months later, Chapman returned with a more professional package, which included an alarmed van, goods-in-transit insurance and business cards. He was given enough work for his van every day, on the condition that he was the driver. "Andrew Dare gave me the start in life when he agreed to letting me work my van for Europa," says Chapman.
He bought an Iveco Ford Cargo from Europa and a new Mercedes 307, when he won several contracts during 1987 and 1988. Moving his office from the back garden he rented an old portable building in a breakers yard in Kent for £200 a week. When he re-decorated it, he says, "it felt like moving into Buckingham Palace."
The youthful entrepreneur raised most of his money through loans from his local Natwest bank which still provides him with credit. "Because I am young and en thusiastic, the bank has more and more confidence in me as I go further up the ladder," he says. Ironically, though, when he applied for an Access card at the age of 18, the bank turned him away, despite his turnover increasing from £400 a week to a £2 million per annum turnover in three years.
As he is so young, Chapman often finds it hard to convince customers he is a serious businessman. "People I go to see usually have a son my age at college, or working in McDonalds, and so when I turn up claiming to be a managing director, they find it hard to accept," he says.
Customers think Chapman has inheritec his business and do not think he has mud practical knowledge: even when he explains the situation he is sometimes resented. "It is very hard to gain respect from older people because they look dowi on you as if to say: 'I could have done that.' But it is not as easy as they think," he says. However, he does not see his age as being a problem. "The experience I have had, some people would have had in a lifetime. Sometimes I wish people could see my operation before they make a judgement."
Staff have also found it difficult to take
orders from someone so young, he says. But he feels he has gained their respect, by giving them respect. However, he still finds it hard to work with his father, who runs the 1,858m2 warehouse, and his grandfather, the transport manager (Chap man still lives in his parents' ex-council home). "Family always expect more favours and take a bit more advantage," he says. But he values the support and teaching his father has given him.
Chapman has spent some of his earnings on personal luxuries, including a Jaguar Sovereign with personalised number plate D700 DAC (his previous car, a Mercedes, he has given to his father). "1 work long hours, so I want nice things like a car, suits and holidays," he says in justification. "I don't really socialise that much, but I've got an understanding girlfriend."
A major boost in Chapman's career came late last year, when he won a contract with Barth ltaliana, competitor of Europa, for whom he was still working. Because of the conflict of interest, both Chapman and his father, who had been employed for 11 years, had to leave the company. He felt the time was right to diversify. "Although I owe my start to life to Andrew Dare, I gave him a good service at the time, and 1 knew if I wanted to get anywhere in life, I could not do it if 1 had to be at the beck and call of Europa," he says. The Barth business was his first international business and involved deliveries of clothes to Italy, France, Belgium and Holland.
Chapman, whose fleet includes a 38tonne Leyland Daf tractive unit and a secondhand 32-tonne ERF, now has contracts with Brewer & Sons, Capstans Shipping and Tudor Beer. Four trucks are owned outright, four are on hire purchase and three on lease purchase. Four of his eight trailers are contract hired.
His staff includes 14 drivers, four warehouse staff, two van boys, an accountant who has worked there seven months, and a personal assistant taken on last year. As managing director, Chapman makes sure all of his vehicles have left the depot by 09:00hrs, before opening the day's mail.
He plans to expand the company substantially. "I want a nice big empire," he says. "When you get so far you always want more and I feel with a little more effort the business could go very far." Eby Juliet Parish.