Eddie McElhinney

Yet McElhinney is one of construction's most successful entrepreneurs. SAS International, the firm he set up from his sofa when he was 23 years old, is one of the UK's top five materials manufacturers. He owns the world's second largest manufacturer of metal ceiling components and is a big supplier of cladding and partitions. His metal tile plant in Bridgend, Wales, is the biggest on the planet. Still privately owned, Newbury-based SAS employs 850 people and turns over £123m.

Oddly, given his low profile, the 58 year old has built his reputation on some of the world's great show-off buildings: look up to the ceiling in the Lloyd's building, the Alexandria Library, or practically any major airport in the world, and you will see his products. "We were the largest single UK exporter for Chek Lap Kok," he says, dwelling on each word for maximum effect like a bar-room storyteller. "Our contract was worth £45m. But we never told anybody."

Until now, McElhinney's old-fashioned approach to marketing – generating business through word-of-mouth and building strong relationships with key clients – left no room for vulgar indulgences such as PR.

But the world has moved on. UK manufacturing is in recession and the strong pound is battering exporters. Most significantly, giant American materials firms such as Armstrong World Industries and USG are aggressively targeting Europe.

This trend could seriously shake up the cosy UK sector, where domestic firms account for 70% of the market. "Armstrong has moved into my business in Europe and is now moving into the UK in a big way," says McElhinney. "They're a highly organised, highly polished machine. We've decided we need to take the wraps off and tell people what we're doing."

For someone who has never faced a journalist before, McElhinney is playing a smart game. The purpose of inviting him to Building's offices was not, as I recall, to discuss SAS' PR strategy; instead, it was to get a manufacturer's perspective on the industry.

Sir John Egan's strategic forum has been telling construction teams that they will be more efficient if they get manufacturers on board at the start of projects, and McElhinney has a reputation for doing just that. "He likes to get involved very early on," says Mouzhan Majidi, a director at Foster and Partners who worked with him on Chek Lap Kok.

"He sets up his organisation to deal with the project, buying new equipment and building full-size samples, even when there's no guarantee he's going to get the job. It's quite unique for a subcontractor to do that."

I try to raise this point but McElhinney has other ideas. He wants to offer me insights into his life and business; he will get round to supply chains in his own time.

In construction, the ceiling supplier will probably get six weeks’ notice. The ethos is ‘don’t get too close to the supplier’

"It's a classic story of front-room-to-big-business," he begins. "When we started out, my wife did the typing in the lounge." He tells his tale with a deadpan charm, sitting motionless and almost expressionless. He would sound wonderful on the radio, like a craggier, slower Terry Wogan.

McElhinney came to England aged 17 to study civil engineering but soon jacked in academia for employment and joined manufacturer Horace W Cullum. "They were number one in the ceilings business," he recalls. "Then I left for no other reason than I wanted to be successful, wanted to run my own business. Ironically, I bought Cullum 10 years later."

He puts his success down to a "hugely aggressive" approach to investment – ploughing £25m of profit into new factories in the past five years – and a dogged pursuit of prestige jobs. He is an accomplished networker, too; after our meeting he was due to drop in on an architectural practice that had just secured a big job in the Far East.

When he eventually turns his attention to the construction industry, his language becomes blunt. His thinking is very much along Egan lines but without the jargon. Instead, the word "profit" figures most heavily in his analysis.

"SAS is very profitable by industry standards. But historically in construction there's been little profit. The margin for error is minimal. Because of that, there's fear – the fear of loss. But there has to be trust. Everyone has to be confident there can be profit."

Materials factories represent the most significant capital investments in the construction industry. Manufacturers want greater certainty so that they can utilise their plants more efficiently – it costs £400 to keep one of SAS' four-man production lines idle for an hour.

But McElhinney believes construction ordering is more about brinkmanship than planning. "The gearbox supplier for a Ford Focus knows a year or two in advance he's going to get the order," he says. "In construction, the guy who supplies the ceiling will probably get six weeks' notice. The ethos is, 'don't get too close to the supplier, he might think he's going to get the order'."

He would like to see car industry-style supplier agreements replacing the wasteful materials tendering process and, naturally, he would like purchasers to focus on getting their construction costs down, rather than on hammering his margins.

He pauses for a moment of reflection. "What is my great passion? I'm really an engineer. My focus is on efficiencies on site. I can look up at that," he says, pointing to the bog-standard office ceiling in the Building office, "and say, 'that aluminium grid is a patent owned by Eddie McElhinney'."