Flooring specialist becomes an employee-owned company

A Skelmersdale-based business has transferred 51% of its shareholding into an Employee Ownership Trust set up for the benefit of its 51 current, and any future, employees.

Raised Floor Solutions is a specialist in steel decking, concrete flooring and raised access flooring.

It is the leading approved supplier and installer of Kingspan Multideck products with a 10% share of the composite UK floor decking market.

Last year the business turned over £16m and supplied and installed 425,000 sq m of composite floors on 250 UK-based projects.

Graham Hewitt, who co-founded the business in 2003, will remain managing director and a shareholder, and will also be on the board of directors of the trust, along with construction director, Andy Wharton, Anthony Richardson, who joins as finance director, and Malcolm Edge, former UK vice chairman of KPMG.

The business has also established an employee council, providing staff with the opportunity to engage with the board of directors and the trust on the running of the business and to maintain its performance and growth profile.

There are more than 300 employee-owned businesses in the UK with in excess of 200,000 employees, and data indicates that these businesses outperform their competitors on an annual basis.

Raised Floor Solutions has adopted an employee-owned model to ‘future proof’ the business and the jobs within it.

Graham Hewitt said: “Last year we received several approaches from competitors and private equity firms keen to buy the business.

“As attractive as those offers were, they highlighted how important it was for us to ensure that, whatever happened in the future, the business ethic would continue, and our staff would be well looked after.

“As an employee-owned business we have a more robust structure that is not dependent on one individual, but on the whole team and we are now truly all inclusive.

“We have enjoyed tremendous growth in recent years, and this is due to the loyalty and efforts of our hard working employees. It seemed the obvious choice that they should share in the future success of the business.”

Raised Floor Solutions enters 2019 with a record forward orderbook and the directors are confident of achieving its £20m turnover target, despite any uncertainties surrounding Brexit.