ENTREPRENEUR Gerard Eadie has said his CR Smith double-glazing and conservatories business plans to expand into the English market as it heads for a sixth successive increase in annual sales.
Mr Eadie said Fife-based CR Smith expects to start selling products in England in the coming year. He highlighted the potential appeal of markets in areas such as Manchester and Cheshire, which are home to many affluent consumers.
“We need to move out of Scotland and the potential is there,” said Mr Eadie, who is confident that a range of products which includes high end orangeries will prove popular south of the border.
The confidence is partly based on the fact CR Smith has had enquiries from householders in England, which it has turned away to focus on Scotland.
“We get lots of enquiries through the net. Even just working on them we will have a good business,” said Mr Eadie.
He added: “It goes against the grain to turn business away.”
Mr Eadie believes his CR Smith Glaziers business could complete design and installation work in England by sending staff on assignment from Scotland. The company has been investing heavily in recruiting and training skilled staff.
Signalling confidence in the prospects for the sector, CR Smith Glaziers and the CR Smith Manufacturing company have invested more than £3 million in total in growth initiatives in the last three years. This has included importing sophisticated manufacturing machines from Europe.
“I’m pretty happy,” said Mr Eadie. “The market is good and the window market is building, the conservatory and the orangery market is building.”
CR Smith has probably benefited from the improvement in consumer sentiment which has accompanied the recovery seen in the housebuilding market in recent months.
With the Bank of England holding its base rate at a record low of 0.5 per cent, CR Smith has been able to offer cheap finance deals.
However, asked if he was concerned that demand for windows and the like could fall sharply if the Bank of England raised rates, Mr Eadie said: “Finance rates going up I don’t think would make any difference. It would just mean maybe we need to work a bit harder.”
Mr Eadie was commenting after CR Smith Glaziers (Dunfermline) filed accounts showing that turnover increased by nine per cent annually, to £21.4m, in the year to 28 February 2015, from £19.5m in the preceding period. Sales have increased for five years running, from £15.7m in 2011.
Asked if he expected the company to record an increase in sales for the financial year that will end next month, Mr Eadie said he would like to think the growth rate would accelerate year on year.
CR Smith Glaziers made £168,989 operating profit in the year to February 2015. In the preceding year the company made £2.6m after receiving a one-off payment of £4.3 million from a third party, the details of which remain confidential.
The CR Smith Manufacturing business, owned by other members of the Eadie family, made £168,589 operating profit in the year to 28 February, compared with £273,224 in the preceding year.
Sales to trade buyers, including CR Smith Glaziers, increased to £7.3m from £7.1m.
CR Smith can trace its roots to 1917 when it began as a picture framing shop in Alloa and a glazing workshop in Dunfermline.
Gerard Eadie has owned the glaziers since 1977.
The average number of people employed by CR Smith Glaziers increased to 300 in the year to 28 February, up from 290. CR Smith Manufacturing employed an average of 88 people in the latest year, up from 84.
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