The Business
Gardman is the UK’s leading supplier of wild bird care products, tooling, lighting and gardening sundries. The business supplies products, sourced mainly from Asia to both the fragmented independent garden centre market and to national chains. The company offers over 3,700 mainly slow moving and difficult to source SKU’s providing by far the broadest product range of any of its peers. Products are sold under Gardman’s own range of brands which include Gardman, Grow It, Cole & Bright, Blacksmith & Eden Bloom.
Investment thesis
Gardman was the clear market leader in the UK providing category management capabilities and a procurement cost leader for its mostly imported SKUs. The underlying UK gardening sector was resilient, forecasting growth driven mainly by an ageing population and economic recovery. The strategy was to properly capitalise the business, greatly improve stock availability, and then drive operational improvements by investing in logistics systems and expanded warehouse capability. This investment would open up opportunities to grow revenues in new routes to market in particular additional national accounts and B2C.
Exit
In March 2018, the recently opened Daventry warehouse was destroyed by a catastrophic fire. Rutland moved assertively to take control of this difficult situation and protect value for lenders and investors. After taking steps to rebuild the business, it became clear that the business would need additional resource and time to fully recover and accordingly the business was sold to Westland Horticulture Ltd.
