Taylor Maxwell Group is one of the UK's leading suppliers of timber and façade solutions to the construction industry. Founded in 1959 as a brick and timber merchant, it has developed into a £250 million turnover business. It distributes a range of sawn soft wood timber for the construction, pallet and fencing sectors and façade solutions, including facing bricks, masonry and cladding to the house building and commercial sectors.
Four years ago, the Directors recognised they needed to address succession and appointed us to advise on the options available. A trade sale option was explored, including initial discussions with a number of third parties. However, key shareholders favoured a management buy-out to extend the same opportunity to the next generation management team that they had received. At the time, it was felt the new team was not quite ready to fully take over. A phased buy-out strategy was therefore implemented with the intention the original shareholders would fully exit as soon as they considered the next generation was ready.
Over the ensuing period, our corporate finance and tax advisory teams was working closely with Company on the phased buy-out strategy.
Brickability, recognising the strategic importance of an acquisition of Taylor Maxwell, approached the Company to explore a potential acquisition. We were appointed to advise the Company and the shareholders in connection with this interest and eventually an offer was received that reflected that strategic value.
We provided an integrated, one team approach encompassing teams from corporate finance advisory, tax advisory and SPA advisory to achieve the best result for the shareholders.
I would like to thank the teams at Grant Thornton for their help and support through this process. They have been truly outstanding, and we could not have achieved the result we did without them standing shoulder-to-shoulder with us.
Mark Phillips Director, Taylor Maxwell Group (2017) Limited
