Chris Bramhall
07778 650560

Warwickshire and the West Midlands

Engineering and manufacturing businesses, bought locally.

I am based in Warwickshire and buy owner-managed engineering, fabrication and manufacturing businesses turning over roughly £5m to £15m, within about an hour's drive.

Local matters here more than it sounds. It means I can be on your site this week, and that I already know the supply chain you work in.

The area I cover

Within about an hour of Leamington Spa, which in practice means:

Warwickshire — Coventry, Rugby, Nuneaton, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick, Kenilworth, Southam

Birmingham and the Black Country — Solihull, Sutton Coldfield, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Dudley, West Bromwich

And the surrounding counties — Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, north Oxfordshire, Worcestershire, south Staffordshire

If you are a little outside that, call anyway. A good business is worth the drive; I simply cannot be a useful owner of something four hours away.

The work I understand

Thirty years in construction and engineering delivery, so these are businesses where I can walk the floor and follow what is happening:

FabricationStructural steel, sheet metal, platework, welded assemblies, architectural metalwork
MachiningCNC turning and milling, precision components, toolmaking, subcontract machining
ElectricalPanel building, switchgear and control gear, LV distribution, industrial installation
Mechanical servicesPipework, HVAC installation, process plant, maintenance contracting
ManufacturingSpecial-purpose machinery, industrial equipment, components and sub-assemblies
Construction tradesSpecialist subcontractors with a real trade and a repeat customer base

What I am looking for

TurnoverRoughly £5m to £15m. Profitable, with a management layer that is not only the owner.
OwnershipOwner-managed, typically one to three shareholders, clean share register.
SituationRetirement, or succession with no family or management successor. Not distress.
Not a fitBusinesses where the owner is also the technical delivery, or where one customer is most of the revenue.

Why local actually matters

Most of the letters you receive come from London, or from a broker who will never visit. Three practical differences:

I can be there this week. Not for a formal meeting with an information memorandum — to walk round, see the plant and ask what the work is really like. You learn more about a buyer in an hour on your shop floor than in six weeks of correspondence.

I know the supply chain. The main contractors, the specifiers, the approvals that matter in this region and the ones that are just paperwork. You will not spend the first meeting explaining your market.

I will still be here afterwards. A buyer who lives forty minutes away and intends to run the business is a different proposition from one who will appoint a managing director and visit quarterly.

If you are weighing this up rather than ready to act, the four realistic options sets out what else is available — including the routes that have nothing to do with me.

Next step

If you are in the area and thinking about it, call.

Fifteen minutes on the phone, or I will come to you. I would rather walk a works than read a set of accounts, and you will learn more about whether we would get on in an hour on your shop floor than in any amount of correspondence.

Call me on 07778 650560

Confidential either way. I will not contact your staff, your customers or your suppliers.