FEATURE
Balcas; The Natural Leader Balcas, previously Ballycassidy Sawmills Limited, has come a long way in its 60-year history. With the world looking towards a carbon neutral future by 2050, the company couldn’t be in a better position to capitalise on its existing growth, CEO Brian Murphy tells Emma Deighan.
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allycassidy sawmills began life as a small processor of hard wood, but with increasing supplies of softwood on the island of Ireland, Ballycassidy incorporated in 1962, and changed its business to one that exclusively processes the softwood crop from Ireland’s forests. Brian says as the harvest from Ireland forests increased, so too did Fermanagh-based Ballycassidy. “By the 1990s the company was increasingly targeting markets in Great Britain and it was thought appropriate to simplify the name. Ballycassidy Sawmills became Balcas in 1991,” he begins. “The first real step outside of being a small, single site business was actually in 1988 when we bought a company in Kildare that provided a commercial timber drying service. Ballycassidy expanded this
business and pioneered the manufacture of primed architectural mouldings from mdf in these islands,” he adds. A series of acquisitions and sell-offs over the next few decades would turn Balcas into the major sawmill, and the carbon neutral energy provider it is today. Balcas sells timber to merchants in NI, the Republic of Ireland and Great Britain. “Many readers could very easily have some Balcas timber within their house construction, or in their garden,” says Brian, who joined the firm in 1992 shortly prior to it acquiring its nearest competitor, which was in the midst of an administration process. “That allowed us to grow what was a modest business with a turnover of £8m in 1992 up to £20m by the mid-nineties. Balcas then went on the acquisition trail. It bought a pallet manufacturer in Co Antrim in 1995.”
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“By 1996 Balcas had three sawmills and six different sites including a presence in Estonia. This scaling up, along with the talent acquired, has ultimately allowed us to consolidate into a more modern, larger company, that is full of potential.” In the early noughties Balcas combined its three Irish bases into one at Enniskillen where its headquarters is based. From there it employed a wealth of new technology, that had originated in the US automotive sector, to build one of the most technologically advanced factories of its kind in the world. “It was a £14m investment,” reveals Brian. “The technology employed is set up so that every log that the factory processes is scanned in three dimensions and an optimal solution is worked out in milliseconds so that the best value is extracted from the piece of raw material (in this case a log).” New shareholders at different times
