IAWS saviour keeps eye on expansion trail

IAWS has come a long way from its 19th century beginnings busting manure cartels. Nowadays, it is an international agri-food manufacturer with sales of close to £600 million and interests in four key areas food, fertilizer, feed and proteins, and oils. Among its better-known brands are Shamrock Foods, Irish Pride, Gouldings Fertilizers and Power Seeds.

Established by the agricultural co-operatives in 1897 to pool their buying power and break the cartels that operated at the time, IAWS has survived unlike many other central co-operatives. These died off as the individual co-ops became more respectable and powerful and able to buy for themselves. But IAWS thrived by going into business in its own right.

The company hit a tough patch in the early 1980s when it found itself in serious trouble and incurred heavy losses, but since Mr Philip Lynch's appointment as managing director in 1982, it has grown rapidly. Turnover has jumped from £54 million in 1983 to £582 million last year while pre-tax profits grew from £700,000 to £25.3 million.

Over the last 15 years, IAWS has expanded in each of its four divisions by acquiring companies that give it significant scale in its specialised markets. The rationalisation of the company undertaken in 1983 was followed nearly three years later by the acquisition of Gouldings, a milestone in the expansion of the company's fertilizer business.

In 1988, IAWS became a public company and in 1990-1991, it doubled in size following the acquisition of the Cork-based agribusiness and general trading group R & H Hall. It expanded its fish protein and oil business in 1993 and 1994 through the purchase of United Fish Products, a Scottish-based fishmeal and fish oil manufacturing firm. Last year, it spent £51 million acquiring Cuisine de France, the Dublin bakery company which is a market leader in the supply of speciality products such as baguettes and croissants.

"Every three to four years we do something major which would suggest that we would be looking at next doing something big in 2000 to 2001," Mr Lynch says.

In the short term, the company is looking to build on the acquisition of Cuisine de France.

IAWS hopes to expand the company's reach beyond Britain and Ireland and into mainland Europe. "The internationalisation of our food business will take place under the banner of Cuisine de France," Mr Lynch says. IAWS has already appointed a team with specific responsibility for developing the brand outside Ireland and Britain and the brand name is now registered in every major country in Europe. It has just agreed a joint venture with a major Dutch producer to expand the brand in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic over the next two years.

Meanwhile, IAWS continues to look for new markets and opportunities to expand its product range in its marine protein business. With operations in Killybegs in Co Donegal and in Aberdeen, Shetland and Grimsby, it currently manufactures about 90 per cent of the marine protein in Ireland and Britain.

In its fertilizer business, IAWS plans to use its stake in French fertilizer firm, Cedest Engrais, as a vehicle to expand in mainland Europe.

Mr Lynch says he does not anticipate adding a fifth leg to the business or taking one off and is likely to be still focusing on the same four core divisions in five years time.

There is a good spread within the business and the company is not totally dependent on any one sector, he believes.

Within the management team, the emphasis is on rewarding and motivating staff. Every employee is a shareholder in the company other than those in the most recently acquired companies and they too will be given an opportunity to become stakeholders. IAWS employs 2,000 people in total, including some 970 in Ireland.

The company also focuses on improving the skills of its middle management. It put 20 of its middle managers into the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business in 1995 on a two-and-a-half year tailor-made management programme and is looking at doing another one.

Mr Lynch sees his role as calling the future. He says the well-being of the company today is due to decisions taken in 1994 and 1995 and it is his task to ensure that the decisions taken now will put the company in a strong position at the start of the next millennium.