2 minute read
RIGHT TO BUY
ANDY EFSTATHIOU decided the pandemic was the right time to acquire - and his strategy ensures that it is making money
he pandemic hit office T supplies dealers hard and, in November last year, many were still trying to mitigate the effects of yet another lockdown. However, for Croydon-based Quills, the time was right to acquire.
Quills, and its managing director Andy Efstathiou, is no stranger to dealmaking, having acquired several companies in recent years; he now has a tried-and-tested method to ensure any purchase delivers value from the off.
The acquired company, Control Office Supplies, was local to Quills, and the owners, a brother and sister team, had known Andy for many years. When the pandemic resulted in a downturn in business, they looked to sell and contacted Andy asking if he was interested in doing a deal.
“With the trust that was there, as we had
known each other for a long time, we were able to turn the deal around within three weeks from first meeting to agreeing the commercials, contract and a live date,” Andy says.
“It was the quickest deal we’ve done. We purchased the customer base of Control Office Supplies and transferred the staff across under TUPE regulations. It’s a quite smooth process which we’ve got pretty good at after a number of acquisitions.”
Following completion of the deal Control Office Supplies’ webshop has been gradually closed and customers moved to Quills’ own online store. “This means we end up managing only one webshop and one back office.”
The former Control Office Supplies business has been contributing to the Quills’ bottom line as Andy has been able to eliminate any duplicate costs from the start. “Their staff came to work at our office, so my rent doesn’t increase, whereas Control Office Supplies had a separate rent bill on their P&L.”
“We streamline and remove duplicate costs – accountancy fees, IT support, system fees etc; we often end up halving what their monthly running costs were, and that can go onto the bottom line.”
Now that Control Office Supplies has been merged into the Quills business, Andy is planning on a period of consolidation as the company builds its business back up again to pre-pandemic levels. Many of Quills’ clients are London-based and only now are employees coming back to the office in any number. There will also be some internal reorganisation over the coming months, although Andy is understandably tight-lipped about that for now.
“Once that has been done I will be going on the acquisition trail again,” Andy says. “We have a playbook on how to make it a success. There are a lot of dealers struggling currently and consolidation in our industry is needed over the next few years; we are one of those companies that are primed to provide an exit for some of these dealers.”
Andy adds that he is looking for relatively small acquisitions. “A decent aim is 20-30% of our current turnover – that’s a good maximum, otherwise it gets difficult to embed them quickly.”
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
All this is a far cry from how Quills began 25 years ago, when it was just Andy sat
