Renegade Conservatory Guy

The latest news reports suggest that Brian Kennedy, the double glazing entrepreneur behind the Latium Group has stated that he will continue to finance the McCann’s search for Madeleine for the rest of his life if required.

The former window cleaner from Edinburgh said he would use his estimated £350million fortune to back the couple as long as Madeleine remained missing.

His decision to get involved in such a high profile media frenzy has brought him to the attention of the British public, but he has been well known in the double glazing industry for many years.

So, who is Brian Kennedy?

And how does he find the time to be involved with the McCann’s when he’s at the helm of a Home Improvement empire, facing increasingly tough market conditions?

According to the latest Times rich list he is the 251st richest man in the UK, worth in the region of £350m. His companies, led by Latium, had £500m sales in 2006.

In a recent interview he stated:

“I play the game; it’s like playing rugby. You want to play, so you want to win. So when the opportunity comes up then I make the moves for the good of the business. I don’t want to be on the touchline.”

The quote is in reference to his love of Rugby Union, as the owner of the highly successful Sale Sharks Premier Rugby Club. It’s clear he likes to work hard and play hard with his own rugby club, houses, boats, planes and so on.

BK (as he is known by friends) is ably partnered at Latium by Stuart Lees, well known as a deal maker from his time as a head of corporate finance with Arthur Andersen. As the chief executive of Latium Plastics, one of the parts of the home improvement business owned by Kennedy, he’s one of a number of key individuals to whom Kennedy is fiercely loyal – through good times and bad – and who he intends to help become wealthy as well as wise.

According to Brian Kennedy:

“Stuart Lees has a bright mind and has a capable mind but he’s also having to learn the new role and understand how to run a business day to day. How to make 25 decisions a day and get 20 of them correct.”

The Latium Group includes the following companies:

Everest Windows
Weatherseal
Zenith / Staybright
Ultraframe Conservatory Roofs
GB Wendland
Supremeoglaze
Space Kitchens
Spectus / HW Systems
Kestrel / BCE

I’ve tried to build up a picture of the man and his Empire by piecing together information from a variety of sources online. It’s a very complex picture, and I’m sure the only man who really knows how it all ticks is Brian Kennedy himself.

Anyway, here goes:

Weatherseal

He paid £50,000 to buy Weatherseal over 15 years ago after the failure of his first venture into double glazing.

Weatherseal is a company I have questioned on this website a few times as the sales reps continue to use pressure sales techniques, giving the industry as a whole a poor reputation. Weatherseal are strong in the North west of England and Scotland.

Supremeoglaze is a division of Weatherseal Holdings Ltd. There’s very little information available about Supremeoglaze, apart from disgruntled customer’s reviews.

More recently, Weatherseal has expanded its operations by the purchase of the Zenith Staybrite names.

Zenith Staybrite

In January 2008, Brian Kennedy and Weatherseal stepped in to purchase the brands of Staybrite and Zenith after the collapse of this Bowater business. The acquisition of the sales structure included 20 showrooms and 6 installation branches and covered about 65% of Zenith and Staybright sales areas.

At the time of this acquisition it was estimated the Zenith Saybrite deal would double the size of Weatherseal to £100m sales per year.

Weatherseal Managing director Ian Blackhurst said then that the market was tough, but the replacement window market was worth £2bn a year.

“Zenith Staybrite is a great brand. It reached its peak in 1999, when it had sales of around £150m and made substantial profits. Since then sales began to fall, but it never reduced its cost base, and so began to lose money.

“The administrators contacted us late last year and we are pleased to have been able to save some of the jobs in Norfolk, where the business was founded, and we’ll also be creating jobs in the north west.”

Mr Blackhurst said: “In spite of the current economic slowdown we see many opportunities emerging in the market place.”

Everest Windows

Mr Kennedy bought Everest in 1999 for £47m then sold part of his stake to management in 2003 for £63m. After that, he added to his shareholding to take it to 66 per cent.

Then in 2007, Mr Kennedy sold a 25.1 per cent stake to Hutton Collins in a deal which valued the company at £150m, with the company turning over in the region of £160m per year.

Today, Everest is clearly the strongest name in the double glazing industry, and doesn’t seem to be suffering in the current economic climate in the same way as its main rival Anglian Home Improvements. During 2008, they have invested in a new TV campaign returning to Tann Hill to film the new energy efficient windows and solar panels they have installed.

St Helens Glass

In May 2001 Brian Kennedy bought St Helens glass for an undisclosed fee and at the time it was described as ‘most exciting development in the company’s 30 year history’.

But the company was closed down in 2007 with the loss of over 300 staff after struggling to trade profitably. The closure followed an Office of Fair Trading investigation and an appearance on the BBC’s Watchdog programme.

Brian Kennedy had a hands off approach to St Helens Glass and paid the price.

At the time of the collapse he said: ‘I was a significant investor in St Helens Glass but was not either a director or someone involved in the management of the business.

‘I am naturally very disappointed that I have lost my investment and that the trading conditions of St Helens Glass have led the directors to conclude that regrettably they had no alternative but to place the business into liquidation.’

Space Kitchens

Space Kitchens have recently gone into administration and been bought by Weatherseal. Space generated sales of £36million last year but blamed the economic downturn for recent losses. In July they made 122 staff redundant at their head office in Blackburn, Lancashire.

Brian Kennedy had previously been a director for 14 years.

There seems to be quite a lot of adverse customer reviews on the internet about Space Kitchens, similar to the new owners Weatherseal.

Ultraframe / Wendland

Prior to Brian Kennedy’s conquest of Ultraframe, the conservatory roof company had been through a meteoric fall from grace. Having been by far the strongest name in the conservatory market, making unbelievable profits and dictating high prices to the industry with arrogant diregard, the company quite suddenly went into free fall. A strong competitor in Synseal, over ambitious expansion in the US and expensive litigation with K2 costing millions combined to ensure Ultraframe’s value fell from £300m in 2000 to £30m in 2006. In 2003 Ultraframe shares had been at 350p, but the price tumbled to the amusement of many in the industry.

Latium paid 30p per share for the company and has since stabilised the company’s fortunes with cost cutting and providing economies of scale across product lines.

Despite interest from investment firms, Kennedy’s Latium Holdings won the day because it had identified scope for substantial cost savings and synergies. The UK business of Ultraframe complemented Latium’s existing conservatory roof manufacturer Wendland, and Latium’s management had a clear strategy about how they could turn round Ultraframe’s US operations by leveraging their expertise in the UK home improvement market gained through the Everest business.

The word in the industry is that Ultraframe is turning round nicely under its new owners, and Kennedy has got himself a bargain.

Kestrel / BCE / Celuform

In 2007 the Latium Group Consolidated its position in the cellular building products market as Celuform Ltd became a subsidiary of Latium Building Products Ltd. alongside Kestrel-BCE Ltd.

In January 2008, Celuform was relocated to Scunthorpe in a restructuring of the business. Paul Neilson, Managing Director of Latium Building Products commented “Two key proposed developments are intended to have a positive impact on our customers and the sustainability of the entire supply chain.

“The main proposal is the relocation of Celuform’s operation to Scunthorpe to take advantage of our state of the art facilities and in house raw material blending.

HW Plastics / Spectus

Latium acquired the troubled Heywood Williams Plastics Division – HW Plastics, Spectus and Kestrel/BCE – for £3m in August 2005, and later rebranded as Spectus.

The business is now headed up by the very vocal Sam Kennedy as Managing Director and seems to be doing reasonably well in a tough market.

Other deals

Prior to his involvement with the Sale Sharks, Brian Kennedy previously owned Stockport County but the relationship was at best strained. He’s also been involved with Duraflex, Moben Kitchens and Genesis Communications.

Conclusion

Brian Kennedy is still relatively young at just 48 years old, so I predict that the double glazing industry is likely to see the man dominate the marketplace over the coming 10-15 years. He is extremely astute at picking up troubled companies and turning them around and making a profit.

Clearly some of the companies he has been involved in have failed, such as St Helens Glass, but I believe that he is the type of man who will dust himself down and come back stronger.

The current market conditions are ideal for Brian Kennedy – the serial deal maker!

Tags: Brian Kennedy, Everest Windows, Latium Group, Natural Born Sellers, Predictions, Spectus, Ultraframe, Weatherseal, Zenith Staybright

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 7th, 2008 at 10:58 pm and is filed under Double Glazing News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.