PARTNER FOCUS
IBMG: C
an you be both an independent merchant and a huge group? That’s the question increasingly being asked of IBMG, the growing south-of-
England based merchant that includes Grant & Stone, Parker Building Supplies, Chandlers, CRS and RGB amongst its many brands. Yes, you can, if you approach it in the right way, says Martin Stables, appointed Chief Commercial Officer of the group at the tail-end of 2021. “IBMG is a group of lots of smaller, but extremely well-respected merchant brands, that wants to maintain a fierce independence in front of the customer,” says Stables. He joined the independent, having spent nearly a quarter of a century working for Saint Gobain’s National merchant chains.
“At the same time, when we look at our supply base, we need to act as one cohesive group. If you think about it, there really are only the national chains, who have experience in acting at this size and scale. What the IBMG leadership team, backed by the Cairngorm Capital partners wanted to do, was bring someone in who had experience of operating at that broad, national level, but who would also understand the importance of being fiercely defensive of the independent nature of the customer-facing brands.”
Stables’ 24 years with Saint Gobain includes lots of different roles, starting and finishing with Graham, before it was divested. “Back in the day, Graham was a small plumbers’ merchant. I had been there for two years when we were bought in 1998 by Jewson, owned by Meyer at the time, who in turn were acquired by Saint-Gobain in 2000. Over the years, Graham moved from being a local plumbers’ merchant to a more general merchant and then back again, under Jewson ownership” he says.
10
BALANCING SIZE, SCALE AND AN INDEPENDENT OUTLOOK
Martin Stables, newly appointed CCO of IBMG, talks to BMJ about the direction of the group and how the Partnership with NBG is going to develop.
IBMG as a newly
formed group of lots of smaller, but extremely well-respected merchant brands want to maintain a fierce independence in front of the customer,
Jewson and Saint Gobain were hugely acquisitive throughout the early 2000s, so Stables has plenty of experience in that area. However, the latter 10 years were more about stabilising and divesting businesses. “To put it simply, I’d rather be in a growing
business than a shrinking one,” he says, which is why the role at IBMG appealed. IBMG is made up of several of the merchants that have been brought into the Cairngorm Capital family in the past four years, including: Parkers, Chandlers, Stamco, Fairalls, Grant & Stone, Total Plumbing Supplies, DW Burns, Sussex Plumbing Supplies, 3Counties, RGB, BuildIt and CRS.
“For me, the way Cairngorm Capital backs businesses, is a great proposition. They identify how best to invest in a business to support it’s growth,” he continues. “Cairngorm act as responsible stewards of the business and bring their knowledge, background and education into the management team. They look for businesses where the management team is already very strong, and together they
January 2022
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