Can anyone get me this Sunday Times Article ??

Masala

Eddie Stobart's Andrew Tinkler

1. Andrew Davidson Andrew Tinkler has turned round Britain’s best known haulage firm and has big plans. Just don’t mention the property deal
   Published: 30 October 2011

... I dont have a Subscription ...but would love to get the Article???

Its an interview with the CEO of Stobart Group in the Times on 30th October. Stobart are an investor in Aer Arann and would like to see his comments as to where this investment is going???

Thanks

afatbollix

The oddity of Andrew Tinkler is plain from the start. “Good to meet. I just need to check on a racehorse I’m selling,” he says, carrying an open laptop into our interview.

Short and wiry, he looks like a ferret and speaks like a farmer, full of fast, flat Cumbrian vowels.

Then, midway through our meeting, he yelps, eyes flitting to the screen. “Ee, I might have sold it.” He shoots me a mischievous grin. “Around 240,000 guineas. You’ve got to know when to sell a ‘orse. Now, where was I?”

Running the Stobart Group. The haulage firm, best known for its gleaming red and green lorries, emblazoned with Eddie Stobart, the founder’s name, is so popular it’s the subject of a Channel 5 documentary, now in its third series. The business was bought by Tinkler in 2003 after it hit difficulties under Edward Stobart, Eddie’s son.

Tinkler floated it four years later, in the sort of reverse takeover that entrepreneurs love, and here he is, aged 48, a self-made millionaire with a private jet and a passion for horses — he has 80 — heading a FTSE 250 business and answering to shareholders.

He is also pushing Carlisle-based Stobart into places few expected it to be: Southend airport, an Irish airline, a biomass business. What is he up to? De-risking the business, he says. Or in Tinkler terms: “I didn’t want the business to be a one-trick pony because that’s not sustainable. I wanted multimodal, so it’s back to how it used to be, when you had canals, trains, roads...”

And airports too, if his full plans come to fruition. But last week, Stobart Group reported half-year profits slipping on a weak economy. Tinkler, who left school at 15 and made his first fortune providing maintenance gangs for Railtrack, may have to rein in his ambitions.

He already has retail franchises in the Ukraine and property held outside Stobart, assets that caused a ripple earlier this year when his listed firm launched a rights issue to buy the portfolio. Stobart’s share price plunged in May after rumours circulated that the Financial Services Authority was investigating the deal.

Tinkler stiffens. The property, he explains, was part of Westbury, the firm into which he reversed Stobart to gain its listing. At the time, he and William Stobart, brother of Edward, bought the portfolio to help the deal go through.

Now that property could provide a good return, if it got the right investment. Stobart Group could benefit if it bought it. And the rumours?

“They started because a certain individual who used to work for us wanted to cause trouble. He’s just got a three-month suspended sentence for breaching a civil injunction against us.”

Point taken. The long-running television series on Stobart, which makes a drama out of container hauling, doesn’t get the half of it. Add in the fact that Edward Stobart, who turned his father’s agricultural delivery firm into an iconic brand, died bankrupt, aged 56, in March, and you can see why the boardroom might make a better soap.

But Westbury raises a serious question about Tinkler and William Stobart, his long-term business partner. They are Stobart Group’s chief executive and chief operating officer, respectively. If they are juggling their private and public interests like this, isn’t there a conflict?

Tinkler shakes his head. “When I took the job of chief executive, part of my contract was that 25% of my time could be spent on other work. But you know what, I’ve spent 100% of my time on the Stobart Group and my private businesses have probably suffered because of that.”

And the property deal is straightforward. He is offering the portfolio to the Stobart board for less than the £150m he and William Stobart paid for it. The board will decide by January. It’s an opportunity for the group. What’s the problem?

“As far as I am concerned, it doesn’t matter if they do or don’t, but there is a chance for a return on capital.”

He shrugs. Tough and chatty, Tinkler is happy to discuss anything, equally unbothered if you disagree. His strength, he says, is in numbers, and spotting the main chance. Totally self-taught, he has never lost the urge to keep trying new things.

You can see that in the Stobart Group strategy. Buying Southend airport in Essex and obtaining permission to extend the runway, signing a 10-year deal with Easyjet, surprised some. Stobart already owns Carlisle airport, and Tinkler thinks a mix of freight and passengers can make small airports a very profitable concern. He may even buy more.

Last November, Stobart Group also took a 5% stake in Aer Arann, a small, loss-making Irish airline, with an option to increase it to 37%. Where’s that going?

Tinkler launches into a rapid-fire reply about opportunity in Ireland, government subsidy, how well Aer Arann works with Aer Lingus, for which it operates some domestic flights. But he doesn’t really answer the question.

Then, he adds that “part of it was to create a service into Southend”, but if he has Easyjet flying in and out from next year, shouldn’t he focus on that?

Sure, he says, but he also wants to offer Stobart’s biggest haulage customers — firms such as Tesco and Coca-Cola — an air-based service. “If I’ve got Coca-Cola with a factory breaking down and they need a part, and they say ‘fly me something in’...”

But wouldn’t they use international couriers? Tinkler’s plans look hubristic. We are sitting in Stobart’s glossy London office in Soho Square, heart of the capital’s medialand. What’s a haulage firm doing here?

Actually, says Tinkler, the building is one of the properties he is trying to sell to Stobart. It will shoot up in value when the Crossrail development is finished.

As for worries about expansion, Tinkler brushes them off. “I’ve been close to crashing and burning before. I’m not going there again. Southend was cheap. We had to get planning but I knew we could do it. I want to put a smile on passengers’ faces.”

And biomass? Simple, he says. It’s about value for shareholders. “Biomass gives us long-term contracts at higher margins than other transport contracts.”

Yet does Stobart need to produce it as well as transport it? Tinkler doesn’t say.

But others will for him. “It’s the profitable bit,” says William Stobart, who jokes that his role is to decipher what Tinkler wants, and explain it slowly to those around them. “Andrew’s so fast he’s ahead of everyone. I’ll decipher and present it better, let people catch up. I’ve probably had more conversations with his girlfriend than he has.”

But that doesn’t mean Tinkler is gung ho, adds Stobart. He is methodical, always putting numbers on spreadsheets to work out possibilities, even in horseracing.

Tinkler’s nervy energy is certainly evident. His father and brother were electricians, but he says he tried a host of trades — joinery, farm work, road work, double-glazing — before focusing on construction.

“If you settle on one thing, you miss opportunities. Sometimes I joke that I’m a gypsy. Tinkler could be a misspelling.”

From a Cumbria construction base he built a sizable civil engineering business. A falling out with a larger contractor, the “crash and burn” he refers to, taught him to be meticulous about costs and contracts.

William Stobart, disillusioned with his brother’s running of the family firm, later bought in. He and Tinkler were already brothers-in-law, having married sisters. When Edward Stobart came looking for a way out, Tinkler folded his engineering firm into Stobart, and brought the haulage business back into profit within two years.

Does that make him the cuckoo in the Stobart family nest? “Not really,” grins Tinkler, but he enjoys the idea. He and William have the same pay, despite the different job titles. But he has the biggest shareholding, 13% of the £425m company.

And the aim is not complicated: to be Britain’s No1 provider of multimodal transport and logistic solutions. That includes rail, sea and air, and involves “establishing operational infrastructures” to service the maximum number of customers, and leveraging “the high value of the Stobart brand”.

But no Stobart airline? He is a big fan of Sir Richard Branson, and the Stobart brand is popular — there’s even a fan club that collects sightings of the company’s lorries.

“No,” says Tinkler, “not unless someone pays us to use the name.” So investors can rest easy. The focus is on increasing haulage efficiencies: reducing empty loads, getting customers to fill lorries faster, passing on fuel-cost rises, and providing the quickest, cleanest service available.

He also wants a higher share price and better returns. “You got enough?” says Tinkler cheerily, as he dashes outside to shout about his £250,000 horse. Later, I find it’s just one of two he sold that day.