P30-31 Company Profile:Layout 1 18/03/2021 17:14 Page 30 WholesalerProfile
The £100m ‘small company’ celebrates 25 years
For 25 years, Kew Electrical has stood as an example of how an independent electrical wholesaler can prosper in the UK market – and without compromising its small- company ethos.
honour of company founder, Geoff Kerly, proving the impact Geoff has had on so many local residents since 1996. Few companies could match the number of local career opportunities provided by Geoff, but with characteristic dry humour, Geoff’s reaction to the statue was that “the cigar would be perfect for the pigeons to sit on.” Reflecting on the past quarter century, Geoff, now Chairman, describes
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how he came to form Kew Electrical on 7 February 1996: “I left school as a 16-year-old and went to work for national electrical wholesalers. I had spent about 17 years working for Newey and Eyre and Edmundsons when I thought, I’ve had enough of this, I’m going to have a go myself. I didn’t really know anything about running a business, I had no money, no supplier accounts, no customer accounts and no stock. It just seemed like a good idea.” For the first month, Geoff worked from his back bedroom and his car.
“I started calling on various customers that I’d known over the years trying to get some business out of them. In month one, I turned over £23,000 by literally buying a product from someone for £10, then if I could sell it for £13, and the bloke wanted 100 of them, I made 300 pounds.” Geoff had no staff or premises. His £23,000 turnover grew to £40,000, £60,000 and then £80,000. At this point, he decided to take on his first premises in Portslade – around the corner from where the business has its headquarters today. He also hired two staff. In 1998, Geoff hired a manager from Newey and Eyre and set up a second branch of Kew Electrical in Rustington, West Sussex. For a while, the better- established Portslade branch subsidised the new one and so the process began with Geoff then adding a third branch in Haywards Heath.
“At that point a chap called Trevor Oram phoned me,” says Geoff.
“Trevor had been the chairman of OLC, a large independent electrical wholesaler which he had sold to a national several years previously. He had retired and was probably a bit fed up sitting around indoors. As I already knew him we arranged a meeting together with two of Trevor’s friends. The result was that they all invested in Kew, which gave us the capital to take Kew to the next stage. We then managed to get the OLC manager from Pulborough to join us, plus the chaps from Chichester and Guildford. So then we had six branches.” At about this time, Kew joined the Fegime buying group, which,
says Geoff, “then gave us supplier accounts with all the major suppliers – and rebates.” Branches in Whitstable and Thanet followed, and another in Lymington two years later. The takeover of Edwards & Edwards in Belfast marked Kew’s first venture far outside its home territory of the south of England. More branches followed with Poole in 2010 and Maidstone in 2012, but the biggest phase of the expansion happened in 2013 with the acquisition of seven branches of Wilts Electrical, giving Kew a presence in Rugby, Midsomer Norton, Trowbridge, Chippenham, Devizes, Weymouth and Chandlers Ford. This acquisition was a big deal for Kew. “These branches were a real struggle to start,” concedes Geoff, “but over the years we have turned them into very good performers.” In April 2016, the acquisition of Ship-Elec gave Kew another branch in
Dartford, and a new venture in Shaftesbury followed, taking its total to 22. Over the next three years, more west country branches opened in Gloucester, Bath, Cirencester, and North Bristol, plus other branches in Dover, Newbury and Tunbridge Wells. Today, Kew Electrical has an annual turnover approaching £100 million and is the largest member of the Fegime buying group where Geoff has been chairman twice.
30 | electrical wholesalerApril 2021
ewnews.co.uk
s the congratulations poured in for the silver anniversary of Kew Electrical, one message suggested that a statue should be erected in the west Brighton suburb of Southwick in
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