22 . Glasgow Business April 2015
From an apprentice to one of Glasgow’s most successful businessmen, Jim McColl has learned first hand what success means. And he shared some of his insight with the audience at a recent Glasgow Talks event
HE WAS TOLD ‘THE S THE LIMIT’, AND HE PR
J
im McColl, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Clyde Blowers Capital, outlined his approach to business success in a very
popular Glasgow Talk in February. He related his experiences and his
approach in buying, building and selling a succession of businesses in the event held at the Blythswood Hotel. It is a story of remarkable growth
from the first deal where he bought the original Clyde Blowers business in 1992 when it had a 3 per cent market share and through acquisition and organic growth built it into a business with a 60 per cent market share. He said that he and his team looked
for businesses that were ‘mission critical’ in one of the sectors they focus on including oil and gas, power, water, waste water and power engineering. Tey were businesses which
normally had a market share below the potential that he and his team believed them to have, and they had the ability to globalise, spreading out from the regions that they currently served. He summarised their approach:
“Seting the goals, seting the vision and working out what you need to do to achieve it.” McColl emphasised that there was a
lot of careful studying of the market before he and his team got to that point. Once that is done, he said: “You have
to come back and keep checking you’re on the right path.” Tis approach had seen him
successfully turn round many businesses including Weir Pumps, where he started out. He said that he had to convince his investor partners that buying that business was a commercial decision and not an emotional one. At that time in 2007 the company’s
Cathcart site was set to be closed and the 550 jobs moved south. Clyde bought the business for £48 million and invested another £40 million in it taking the job numbers up to 900. He said the
business was sold for £500 million in 2011. His latest high-profile deal was
to buy Ferguson, the last commercial shipbuilders on the Clyde, who coincidentally bank with Glasgow Talks sponsor, Clydesdale Bank. Te deal saved 70 jobs, to which Mr McColl and his colleagues have added in a wave of new investment for the yard, which included buying the Parsons Peebles business. He said that they would hear whether
they had been successful in a tender for 100-metre ferries – larger than the yard is used to producing – in a few weeks time. He said the Clyde approach was a
private equity model where they would have seven or eight businesses that they had bought and were working on at any one time. Tey would seek to do one exit each year, which would give a return to investors in the fund. He said that the current fund
targeted to be £400 million had been oversubscribed and it had actually taken in £420 million. Te next fund of £500 million, he said, would be launched soon. Mr McColl said he had a belief that
anything was possible instilled in him when he did his offsite training as an apprentice. “I remember being told on my first day that the sky was the limit. I believed it was which led to me buying the business.” As Stuart Patrick, Chief Executive
of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce who chaired the meeting, said aſter Mr McColl’s speech: “He makes it sound so straightforward.” In answer to a question on handling
setbacks, Mr McColl said he had never had a failure because he took it as a signal that they were not doing the right thing. “Tings happen all the time that pull
you down. But we spend a lot of time creating the vision so we don’t get knocked off it.”
Jim McColl, Founder, Chairman and CEO, Clyde Blowers Capital with Stuart Patrick, Chief Executive, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52