Hardie Polymers - One year on
A new era of Hardie Polymers was born on 25th November 2021 as Hardie Polymers MBO backed by the partners at Nevis Capital went through. If we rewind 365 days we had just told the staff the news and were starting to put plans in place for the new Hardie Polymers Ltd. One year on and Nevis have asked if I could write a little about that first year journey.
By Isy Ferguson - Managing Director, Hardie Polymers
Where do I start? For those who been in an interview with Brian, he's quite a fan of asking you for three words to describe a scenario. I therefore put some thought into the three negatives and three positives of this first year. It’s fair to say I would have failed the interview with Brian!
The three positives came easily - supportive, steadying, inspirational. The three negatives, I could only come up with one – “daunting”, mainly as to what the expectations were of the Nevis team and feeling apprehensive as to how we would meet them. That sole negative word was overtaken and blown into insignificance by the three positives.
We had taken some convincing that the Nevis path was going to be the right choice but as the year has progressed it's become more obvious how, and why, Hardie Polymers fit into the Nevis portfolio. We have become more comfortable realising that our four business partners trust us to get on with running the business and are there to support and guide, having as much or as little involvement as we need along the way.
We started the journey in November 2021 in a race to beat Brexit bureaucracy. With the changing legislation in January 2022 we needed a European subsidiary to be in place before the end of the year to allow continuity of supply from the EU to the UK. We won that first race and Hardie Polymers B.V. was incorporated on 21st December 2021. This was our first experience of working in tandem with Nevis and we realised we are not only supported by our new business partners but also their team. Ian and Alice took all the pressure from us in those first few weeks as they were thrown straight into leading the set up of our new Dutch subsidiary leaving us to continue with the day to day running of the business.
As the year has progressed, we found ourselves no longer in a race competing to win but solidifying and building the pillars to support the company to scale in the future.
What have we achieved in year 1?
· Incorporation of Hardie Polymers B.V.
· Increased stockholding to enable quicker deliveries
· Moved to new 12,000 sq ft warehouse and offices
· Started a new technical training program
· New system implementation underway
· Finance manager joined the team
· Reviewed and clarified roles and responsibilities of the team
· Evaluation of processes
· Review of marketing strategy with a firm new plan in place
We’ve grown the business, developed the team and had some fun along the way.
How do we feel about the future? Excited! We have short term, medium term and long term goals and with the guidance and support of Nevis we will refine these and work toward them as a team. A year into our relationship and daunting isn’t a word I’d now associate with Nevis - we have felt fully supported in the last year and we can clearly see what they promised is actually what they deliver.
With Nevis now integrated into the fantastic team we have at Hardie Polymers, we are optimistic about continuing our growth and look forward to the challenges ahead. Personally, I’d like to thank everyone on the team at Hardies for all of their support over a whirlwind of a year. It’s really rewarding to look back at what we’ve achieved over a short period of time.