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www.intrafish.no (Published 19.03.2008)
This story is provided by IntraFish.com, the global leader in seafood industry news. For up-to-the-minute news and analysis, please visit our Web site intrafish.com
Toby Baxendale: The thinking man's seafood magnate
karl-Erik Stromasta
Consider Toby Baxendale, founder and CEO of U.K. based Seafood Holdings, the thinking man's seafood magnate.
With a personal web page boasting a 4,700-word tome on economic philosophy, Baxendale cites "the strategy and plotting aspects" as his favorite part of the job.
But intellectual pursuits aside, he has shown himself to be a man of direct and successful action.
Since founding his first company 17 years ago while still in university his business empire has grown to include the largest fresh fish wholesaler in the United Kingdom.
Selling to the food service sector -- top-end restaurants, hotels, pubs, caterers -- the company reported a turnover of £100 million ($201 million/€128 million) last year, and a tidy 7.6 percent profit margin, Baxendale said.
Seafood Holdings is the parent company of Direct Seafood, Grimsby-based Scotprime and others.
Fresh acquisitions
Though its ascent has been rapid, Seafood Holdings is nowhere near done growing, Baxendale told IntraFish.
Last month the company purchased two rival suppliers in northeast England, as well as a supply depot -- its twelfth, overall -- in the southwest part of the country.
British fish suppliers are a disparate and fragmented lot, a fact Seafood Holdings has taken advantage of as it has consolidated its powerbase and market share.
"There's Almost no one with our critical mass, our ability to deliver every kind of fish across the country," he said.
Even as it has gotten bigger, the company has been run with tight fists -- as if it were still a struggling business.
"It's easy to be disciplined when you're a small company, struggling to make your next morgage payment,"he said. "The key is to maintain that tight discipline as you grow and become successful."
Looking for a sale
Vaxendale initially planned to take Seafood Holdings to the market in 2008.
"But given the banking markets right now, I don't suspect we'll get anyone to make a sensible offer,"he said. "So we decided we're better off forgetting about selling, and continuing to develop the business."
He owns 76 percent of the company, while private equity firm Risk Capital Partners owns the other 24 percent.
Although he may not have been able to sell it when he wanted to, Seafood Holdings will be brought to the market once economic conditions have gotten better, he said.
"Some time in the future, we'd like to get it sold."
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