Chivers delivers MBO

If you had to choose two words to describe Chris Chivers they would probably be ‘no’ and ‘nonsense’. The Killby & Gayford chief executive has just come through a management buyout, backed by Close Brothers Growth Capital. Was it stressful? No, of course not.

‘You have to recognise you’ll be spending long days, through to the small hours reading documents. There’s a fair bit outside the day job,’ he says in his matter-of-fact way. ‘But while I was dealing with that, my team were making sure the business was operating. The last thing you want is to be finding money for the business and find that the business has fallen down.’

Chivers’ top tips for others considering an MBO are to recognise that you have something good to sell to investors, make sure you have the paperwork to prove your profitability and to be open and honest.

This is the second Killby & Gayford MBO in which Chivers has played a part. In 1998, he was a more junior player in a management team led by the then chief executive Terry Smith and backed by 3i. This year Smith and 3i wanted to move on, so it was Chivers’ turn to lead the six-strong team who between them will take a 55% share in the business.

Understated he may be, but that doesn’t mean Chivers is unambitious. He plans to double the company’s turnover to £160m in five years. (It has already grown from £34.7m to £80m since 1998). So there will be new offices Cambridge is the next one to join the two in Billericay and Clapham and growth within existing businesses.

Killby & Gayford’s bag is a mixed one: refurbishment, including some prestigious heritage jobs; bespoke joinery; retail banking and office fit-out for banks; and the niche but busy market of ATM installation.

The firm’s strength is its customers, says Chivers blue-chips who come back for more.

‘A lot of contractors push for turnover and forget to check whether their clients can pay,’ he says.