The Troy Group builds strong growth plans following funding from Santander UK
Santander UK is supporting Troy UK with a £25m funding package. Troy is among the country’s largest tooling and industrial supplies buying groups and offers extended business support for its members.
The funding will provide the Exeter-headquartered group with the capability to continue its success and fulfil its growth plans over the next five years.
Troy UK was established in 1986 and operates by providing discounts to its members on its wide range of products from more than 400 suppliers that span: cutting and precision engineering tools; hand and power tools; personal protective equipment, hygiene and janitorial products; maintenance, repair and overhaul equipment and products; fasteners; and vendor managed inventory services. As well as Troy UK members benefiting from the group’s collective buying power, it also supports its membership with access to an extended team of specialists and bespoke services that help the independent members to scale and grow. This enables them to compete with multi-national tool retailers while retaining the flexibility and customer service levels that only an independent business can provide.
The group’s revenue has grown from £30m to £300m over the past decade. Its growth has been driven by acquisitions through its vertical integration strategy as well as acquiring THS Group in 2017, and organically by attracting new members and supporting them to grow thereby increasing sales. It has grown its membership from 80 in 2010 to 403 currently.
The group’s five-year business strategy focuses on achieving continued growth by supporting its current members to grow their businesses, attracting new members, increasing wholesale trade through a white label offering via its Trojan Tools Ltd business, and further acquisitions via its vertical integration programme. As part of its work to support its members to grow their businesses, it has launched exclusive business solutions to help them compete with their national competitors. These include providing members with white labelled, fully transactional e-commerce websites that integrate with their counter and trade catalogue sales, with Troy UK providing back-end website technical support and expertise for free.
Paul Kilbride, CEO, Troy UK said: “We have banked transactionally with Santander UK for many years and established a brilliant relationship with the team at the bank. When there was an opportunity to move our funding, my first port of call was Santander UK because the team has inspired such confidence as a banking partner over the past years.”
Simon Whyatt, relationship director at Santander UK said: “Thanks to its many years of experience and strong focus on customer service, our long-time client Troy UK has done a brilliant job of growing solidly over the past year despite the challenges posed by the pandemic. We are delighted to provide it with this latest funding package which complements the day-to-day banking support, trade finance, property loans and foreign exchange services we have provided it over the past decade.”
