A view from the top: Roberts Radio
Leading a very special brand
A couple months ago Roberts Radio celebrated its 80th anniversary with a royal endorsement at St James Palace. The brand’s chairman, Leslie Burrage, like its Revival radios enjoys a very special status in the industry. Anna Ryland met him to hear the Roberts’ story.
L eslie Burrage does not need an
introduction. Like a rock star he is not only the person behind the brand, he is the brand. Famously modest, he would deny this and say that the success of Roberts Radio is the making of his loyal team. Turning around the failing brand which would have been wiped out of the market twenty years ago and making it the number one radio brand in Britain, Leslie credits to the commitment of its current owners, the Glen Dimplex group, and his team. “It only happened that I was the team captain.”
Making of Leslie Leslie Burrage’s life story could have progressed very differently if not for “a Eureka moment” which Leslie experienced at the age of 17 while a pupil of an experimental high school in Kent. “The headmaster showed me a document from Philips Electrical which created a number of commercial trainees. I read the prospectus and thought this was exactly what I wanted to do. I was recruited in 1958 into the scheme that exposed Philips’ 26 management trainees to every aspect of the business: from manufacturing and distribution to ledger control and marketing.” “The three months I spent at Philips
Records were the most magical months of my life. So I wangled my way back for another three months. This was just pre- Beatles period. It exposed a lad from rural Kent to the world of entertainment, glamour and money – and pop extravagance. It even gave me an opportunity to sing with the Cherokees!”
“At the same time I took a business study degree and travelled between Philips factories in the UK and Europe, as the manufacturer had then a very broad business portfolio that ranged from small appliances to radios and televisions.”
Leslie spent eight years with Philips. In 1967 he was headhunted by the Rank Organisation, which at the time was called Rank Bush Murphy and later became Rank Radio International. “There I finally got to grips with the balance sheet”. He joined as Bush brand manger and ultimately became commercial director. At the time Rank Organisation was second to Thorn Group in terms of volume of TV sales. These were the boom years of television and we produced in excess of 200,000 TV sets – many for rental operations.” In 1977, Leslie tried his hand in
venture capital which acquired the Carmen business and a few other brands, including Morphy Richards in 1982. “When we sold Morphy Richards to Glen Dimplex in 1985 my relationship with the company began.” Next he moved to Hitachi where he spent ten years, enjoying only the first five. A close friend of Dick Roberts, the founder of Roberts Radio, Leslie spoke to him when the man was terminally ill about his plans for the business. “We thought about going to the City for founds but I did not want to justify every move to the bankers. Instead I spoke to Martin Naughton, chairman of Glen
16 The Independent Electrical Retailer February 2013
Dimplex. Dick Roberts died in 1991 and three years afterwards Glen Dimplex took over the brand, following a three- year period of tortuous negotiations with the family.” After closing the company’s West Molesey manufacturing base, its production was transferred to Mexborough in South Yorkshire to take advantage of the Glen Dimplex’s facilities, including its logistics and warehousing. Now most of the Roberts injection moulded products are made in the Far East but the Revival range is assembled in Mexborough, on account of its short runs and limited editions.
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