Interview
Sambro comes of age
It’s a milestone year for Sambro, with the Bury-based toy company celebrating 25 years in business and growth expected to hit nearly 40 per cent. CEO Paul Blackaby (pictured) talks to ToyNews about what the next quarter century might bring, and why investing in Gen Z now will pay dividends later
Sambro has been in business since 1996. How has the company changed over time? And how would you describe Sambro now? The business started out as a clearance house, selling across multiple categories to UK retailers, but pivoted in 2006 to also become a licensed toy supplier, specialising in novelty toys, bags, and arts and crafts products, for brand owners seeking access to the wider UK retail sector. So, we’ve been on a transition for a number of years from what you would call a trading company, to what we are today – solely a toy company. We have 100 employees. Most of them are based in the northwest, in Bury, but we have offices in Amsterdam and Hong Kong as well. It’s also important to know that we’re a private-equity backed business. We were acquired in 2016 by a company called Elysian Capital. I suppose if I had
6 | ToyNews | Spring/Summer 2022
to define exactly what we are, I’d say we’re an innovative design- and product-led toy company that is quick to market and very easy to do business with, from both our customers’ and our suppliers’ perspectives.
How would you define “easy to do business with”? We want to be a good partner to everyone we work with. We aim to have the sort of relationships where the suppliers can trust us, the customers can trust us, and the licensors can trust us. We want them to know that they’re working with somebody who has their best interests at heart. It’s particularly important with licensors; we’re using IP that has been invested in by them for many years, and if we take a classic property, like Winnie the Pooh, it’s vital that we use it in a way that Disney will be happy with, or they simply won’t allow us to use
it in future. Of course, our customers need to trust us, too, from a product perspective. They need to know our products meet the right standards and are of great quality, because at the end of the day, the products are going to be used by children.
Last year, Sambro achieved 38 per cent growth. How was that done, and where was that growth concentrated? To be honest, 2021 was a bounce-back year for us from 2020, which was disappointing. Like a lot of businesses, we were heavily impacted by Covid-19. I joined the business as CFO just over two years ago and during my first few weeks in the role, we didn’t get any stock in at all from China, because this strange thing was happening out there that no one fully understood. Last year was a good year, thankfully. We experienced high growth and high profits, and we’re expecting to grow
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