Alistair Houghton meets TREVOR MAUND, managing director of TRM Packaging

TREVOR MAUND’S business may specialise in corrugated card, but it was pink paper that led him there.

TRM Packaging is an industrial giant in sleepy Burscough, churning out 600,000 corrugated cardboard boxes every day for the giants of the food sector.

Managing director Maund, who had spent many years in the packaging industry, bought into the firm after spotting an advert in the Financial Times. It was the second time he had bought a business after spotting an advert in the paper.

TRM, then Seyfert, had been on the brink of collapse – but today the company is thriving, despite the recession, and employs 227 people.

It has now embarked on a £12m expansion plan, backed by a £1.2m grant from the Northwest Development Agency, and wants to grow turnover from £25m to £35m over the next three years.

Times may be hard now, but Maund says this investment will put TRM in a great position when the economy recovers.

“The intention with this plan is to invest when things are difficult, because the capacity comes on stream when things get better,” he said. “We think this is the right time to invest. But it’s not the easiest time to raise capital, so the NWDA funding has been very helpful.”

The centrepiece of the extended factory will be a new £6m corrugating machine, which will increase the factory’s output by 50% and cut waste. It will replace the factory’s current corrugator, installed in 1988.

“We’re looking to protect our jobs going forward,” said Maund.

“Our competitors are investing in their plants. We need to be in a position where we can compete for the next 20 years.

“If we have a 20-year-old corrugator, we’ll fall behind.”

Maund started his career as a trainee accountant at Reed International Paper Group, and soon decided he wanted to become a finance director.

Eventually, he spent five years as FD of billboard company More O’Ferrell before taking the same role at inks business Usher-Walker for 18 months.

He then decided he wanted to look for a new FD role, and spotted an advert in the FT for paper sack firm Ward Packaging. He put a bid together and, rather than taking the FD’s role he had expected, became managing director.

In 2001, the business was bought out and Maund again found himself scouring the FT for investment opportunities.

He soon saw an advert for what is now TRM. The firm, founded as Westbrook Packaging, was in 2001 owned by German company Seyfert, but had suffered financial difficulties and gone into administration.

“I came and had a look at the business and thought my skills could bring something to it,” said Maund.

“In July, I put a funding package together and put an offer to the administrators.

“I thought we were just about to do the deal and then we had 9/11. Suddenly, nobody wanted to invest. They decided the value of the property in Burscough wasn’t what it was beforehand.

“We had to renegotiate the deal and we successfully bought the business in December, 2001.”

Maund and his four fellow directors secured the backing of RBS and, crucially, the company’s suppliers.

“Paper is our main raw material,” he said. “If we couldn’t buy paper, there wasn’t much point in buying the business.”

Maund’s takeover bid was helped by the fact that other companies in the industry chose not to bid.

“The big companies who might have been potential buyers didn’t express an interest,” said Maund. “Most competitors wanted to see the business disappear, rather than buy it.”

TRM designs, prints and makes cardboard packaging from pizza boxes to trays for wine bottles.

Some 80% of its work is in the food industry, with major clients including the Grampian Food Group and Quinn Glass, in Ellesmere Port, which buys trays to transport bottles.

Maund calls TRM a “supply chain solutions” business, rather than a cardboard box manufacturer. It boasts a five-strong in-house design team designing bespoke packaging for clients.

TRM acts as a broker between food manufacturers and supermarkets to design new packaging. It has worked closely with Tesco, for example, on designing “shelf-ready” boxes which store staff can put straight onto shelves without having to unpack. “That speeds up replenishment and reduces wastage,” says Maund.

“If you look at one of our customers – the Grampian Food Group – we’ve doubled our volume and we’ve won business from our competitors. If they’ve got a problem, they bring us in to solve them.

“As an independent, we tend to be more flexible. With shelf-ready, where our competitors might say ‘that would be too much trouble’, we will go the extra mile to provide a solution.”

Though TRM’s margins have been hit by high material prices, Maund says the business remains profitable and is set for growth once the new investment is complete. He says the company, a member of the Alliabox consortium of 10 European box manufacturers, is small and flexible enough to compete with industry giants such as DS Smith Group.

“During the last seven years, we have always been profitable,” said Maund. “It’s not always been easy but we have always responded to changes in the marketplace.

“We see new opportunities. Manufacturing in the UK has generally shrunk, but one sector that has been relatively stable is food and food manufacturing.”

Outside work, Maund enjoys golf and driving his Bentley or his Jaguar XJS.

He insists he never intended to end up running a company and simply aspired to be a finance director – but, as his visible pride in the company shows, he is happy to have the chance to take TRM to the next level.

“Life has been good to me,” he said. “I’ve had three periods in life when I’ve found myself out of work. But, on each of those occasions, fate has opened a new chapter for me.”

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