Peter Atkinson: still motivated by the business
The head of packaging group Macfarlane is too busy with opportunities to consider retirement, says TERRY MURDEN
More than two decades after he became chief executive of Macfarlane Group, Peter Atkinson is showing no signs of slowing down. Indeed, he is talking about the next stage of the packaging company’s growth and indicates that he has every intention of being at the helm to lead it.
Now 68, he dismisses any suggestions of retirement with a firm: “No”. He adds: “The chair and I talk regularly about the timetable but it is not on the agenda. I am motivated by the business and there are lots of opportunities.”
He says that in recent months the Glasgow-based company has hired a couple of senior executives for the UK and European operations who will be key to grabbing those opportunities, including a couple of acquisitions of competitors that it is tracking.
“We typically do two to three acquisitions a year,” he explains. “This year we did a big acquisition [Pitreavie] at the beginning of the year and so we put acquisitions on hold.
“Now we are building our acquisitions pipeline. I would be disappointed if we are not back on the acquisition trail in 2026.”
The current targets are a bolt-on at home in the £3m to £15m turnover range which he hopes to complete next year, and the other – with revenue in excess of £50m – is overseas and is a more strategic proposition. It should be finalised in 2027. Both are in the protective packaging field in which Macfarlane is a significant player and Atkinson sees most of the opportunities.
“Because we are buying from private owners it means building a relationship over time and waiting until they are ready to retire,” he says. “That is why you can never be sure of the timing.”
Talk of acquisitions comes alongside a group-wide search for efficiencies and greater productivity as the company attempts to claw back lost profit and margins. Half-year figures show adjusted operating profit down 22% and pre-tax profit by 49% as costs, particularly labour costs, have risen. Atkinson admits that some of those higher costs have been passed on to the customers “as others are doing”.
The latest figures may be seen as typical of companies coping with the unexpected tax rises delivered by the Chancellor, but Atkinson seems relaxed about the trading position, the dividend has been held and shareholders are supportive of the strategy. He sees its status as a listed company being a sort of “quality guarantee” to customers and suppliers in a sector dominated by private companies.
As for the necessary cost-cutting, there will be some property disposals, partly because of a restructuring in the East Midlands and the ending of some projects that will see a small number of jobs lost, along with natural wastage. He refers to the efficiencies as “fine tuning” and not likely to knock the company off course.
The company was the creation of Norman, later Lord Macfarlane of Bearsden, who died in 2021. He oversaw significant growth and its listing on the London Stock Exchange in 1973. He retired in 1998 after which it began to lose direction.
It failed to acquire rival Scottish packaging company British Polythene Industries and bought National Packaging, but the integration was not successful.
In 2003 Atkinson was brought in to rescue the business and he set about slimming down its eight divisions, most which were losing money. Debt stood at about £35m. A year later it broke even and was back in profit by 2005.
It currently employs more than 1,000 at 43 sites, principally in the UK, as well as in Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands, and supplies more than 20,000 customers who have included the Ministry of Defence, the electronics industry, Proctor and Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser, McBrides, and Kerry Foods.
Current challenges, apart from rising costs, include meeting the changing demands of customers which have been influenced by the rise in online trading and by environmental concerns and regulations which has brought about new taxes to cut waste and the use of plastics.
“We started to get into the online market between 2012 and 2015,” says Atkinson. “It was a big benefit to us, certainly when Covid came along, though we find the retail sector ‘less sticky’ as people move around and new teams come in.”
Artificial intelligence is among the current topics of debate, with companies being urged to get their AI strategy in place. Atkinson is not so ready to make that leap. Like Brexit, he doesn’t see it having much of an impact on Macfarlane.
“We don’t get on bandwagons until we see evidence of the need. We have not yet seen it as a major cost benefit,” says Atkinson, now one of the longest-serving CEOs of a listed company.
Remote working has been a thing for many people since Covid, but it has been a part of his job, more or less since he started, and he still lives in Surrey.
“I spend most of my time on the road. In Glasgow we have six people in the head office but I am wherever I need to be,” he says. “We are not a head office driven business.”
PERSONAL CHECKLIST
Occupation: chief executive, Macfarlane Group
Birthplace: Cheshire.
Age: 68
Education: Grammar school in Cheadle before studying economics at Durham University.
Career highlights: Joined Proctor and Gamble after leaving university. The manager who had recruited him moved to household cleaning products manufacturer SC Johnson Wax and persuaded him to join the company as a sales manager. During his time there he became brand manager for JohnsonWax and Living Wood.
He stayed with Johnson until the 1980s when the managing director of a GKN subsidiary from whom he had won business invited him to join the company. He was headhunted to join Macfarlane in 2003.
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