T& B spreads its wings
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• Tibbett and Britten, the management-owned hanging garment specialist, is diversifying into other distributipn work.
Merchant bank Hill Samuel last week issued the prospectus for the Ell million public floatation of the company, a move intended to raise funds for an ambitious development programme and to boost confidence in its future.
A cornerstone of the company's plans is its West Thurrock, Essex distribution centre being developed to handle over 100,000 items of merchandise, including canned food, toiletries and clothing, for Marks and Spencer. T&B chairman John Harvey, said: "This takes us right outside the traditional base of the company."
It is to be followed by another Marks and Spencer distribution centre "somewhere" else in South-East England — the company refuses to divulge its exact location — and comes on top of the Transcare hanging garment dedicated delivery service already run for Marks and Spencer.
Around 60% of T&B's work is for Marks and Spencer, but it aims to reduce the dominance of Marks and Spencer, not by reducing the amount of work it does for it, but by increasing its other business. According to Harvey, it has taken over about 30% of the work which United Parcels' Scorpio express parcels division acquired with High Street Transport's third party traffic earlier this year.
High Street is owned by the Burton group and is now concentrating on in-house work following the expansion by acquisition of the Burton group.
This reverses earlier setbacks, when TNT's newly launched Garment Express division won T&B's Next delivery contract and the collapse of an agreement with a West German partner plunged it into fierce competition with that firrn.
After losing 21.1 million in 1983, owing to the high costs associated with the launch of Transcare, T&B has returned to profit and made 21.9 million last year before tax. This year, it forecasts a 23.25 million profit.
To encourage staff to invest in the company, T&B is giving away shares to staff employed since the management bought the business from Unilever in December 1984. These share allocations are based on employee's length of service and not on their seniority.
Management are being given 2500,000 in share options, and a save-as-you-earn scheme has been agreed with the Leeds Building Society for the benefit of staff.
Harvey sees the restructured T&I3 as a challenger for business like TNT and • National Freight, including the SPD business he once headed and which is now part of NFC's distribution group.
Speaking of T&B, he told CM: "The business Unilever sold is not the one we run today. There is no way that Unilever would have underwritten the Marks and Spencer distribution company."