Since 1999 Inflexion have partnered with ambitious management teams to accelerate their companies growth. Inflexion were considering an investment in Huws Gray and required expert advice to assess Huws Gray’s IT operations. This included the general fitness of purpose of the IT environment as well as the ability of the IT operations to scale in line with projected business growth and the opening of new locations.

The Investee

Founded in 1990, Huws Gray are the largest independent builders merchants in the UK. They are headquartered in Anglesey and have 61 trading locations across England and Wales.

How we helped

Inflexion had engaged us on previous due diligence projects and so were already aware of our expertise. Inflexion’s Digital Director said, “We knew that you would be able to provide us with the right level of insight for the size and shape of this deal.”

“We also knew that you had specific retail-related experience that would be relevant for this engagement as well as a good geographic cover. This was especially important as the headquarters are in Anglesey and it was critical that we had someone there in a short space of time who was able to maximise their time on site by asking the right questions. The consultant who visited Huws Gray was extremely practical, he got there, got the questions underway and gathered information quickly."

“With the tight timescales on this engagement we asked for a quick check in before anything formally was written down. I just wanted to work out whether anything was on fire or not. The team were flexible with their usual process and had a call with us two days after the consultant had been on site. The call was excellent - it was well informed but the data had also been well processed. The team didn’t just turn around the data captured and tell me everything in screeds of chat over the phone. It was extremely well summarised and processed.”

Results and Future Plans

“Your due diligence report meant that we could be more confident about the deal,” continued the Digital Director, “Huws Gray is a founder-led business that has developed a unique way of providing technology at scale across a significant network of stores. Your work gave me the assurance that the leadership was excellent and they had a high-quality technology stack. That meant I was able to turn my attention to building a strong relationship with the founders and start to work on post-deal plans.”

“You also gave us some insight into what potential post-deal investment was going to be required. All in all the team got in, got it done, got moving. It was great.”