Michael Oliver has built his business in Knutsford into a global leader in oil and gas exploration. Michael Taylor reports.
To be successful in business, says Michael Oliver, as dapper and bright at 72 as you could possibly imagine, you have to embrace constant change. He has done so by developing new valve technologies in his three businesses and selling to big oil majors such as Shell and Exxon and engineering suppliers FMC, to help them pump oil out of the ground or the seabed. But change can also come from external and political forces.
“We’re living in a time of constant governmental change,” he says. “It has changed the trust laws. It’s looking at new taxes. You’ve got this guy Lord ‘Mandy’ Mandelson saying on the radio that he wants to encourage British manufacturing, so why is he trying to tax me and my people out of existence?
“Why?” he asks, rhetorically.
“I’d like to really kick him in the balls if he came through that door. I think he’s a complete tw*t and you can quote me on that as well.
“Next April my tax rate is going to be 68 per cent. Why should I go to work if the government are taking more of the money I make than I am?
“I could employ more people, create more jobs, if I got some tax incentives, like some of my Indian, Chinese and Brazilian competitors get. We employ 250 people on this site and contribute an enormous amount to the tax base of this country. Give us a bit back instead of taxing me out of bloody existence.”
As you can see, Michael Oliver hasn’t made a success by pulling his punches. With a pay packet last year of £5m he’s the highest-paid director of a private company in the North West, and his anger comes from a feeling that hardworking entrepreneurs don’t get the recognition or support they deserve. His company sells £50m worth of valves a year and is extremely profitable.
But don’t get the impression he’s a ranter, he’s a real gentleman, who brims with pride. In November American customer FMC came to Knutsford to present him and his team with an award that says his company is the best in the world. He says: “I’m dead proud of that, we’re a British company at the top of our game.”
The fascinating thing about meeting entrepreneurs like this is hearing the back story; none of this was handed to him on a plate.
“My biggest challenge was to continue this business after four years when we didn’t really make enough to feed the family. I almost threw the towel in. My only tip for anyone who wants to make a success in business is to stay focused,” he says.
His story is an amazing one. After leaving secondary modern school at 15 without a qualification, or even the ability to read and write due to dyslexia, he eventually taught himself and studied for a Higher National Diploma in design engineering.
He went to the US in the 1960s after being excited by the allure of West Side Story and enjoyed his initial bursts of activity as an engineer. However, he was drafted into the American army during the Vietnam War and decided that it wasn’t the life for him after all. “I’m a lover not a fighter,” he explains.
On his return to Britain he joined Sperry Rand Vickers, as it then was, working as a design engineer, eventually meeting Jeffrey Sterling, now Lord Sterling, and turned himself into a “company doctor”, soon expanding into selling companies to American buyers. This gave him the idea to start his own business.
“I started this company in a one car garage in Hale in 1979. I designed a unique valve that prevented leakage and that design is still in operation now,” he says.
The factory in Knutsford, on the Parkgate industrial estate, tests and assembles the valves, but the companies have sales offices in all the oil-producing parts of the world.
“We live by some basic rules. Everyone understands ‘it can be done’. We look for enthusiasm and common sense whenever we hire anyone. We give people the feeling that this is their company, and that’s where creativity comes from. We’re in business to make money, not to make valves. Our control systems are brilliant. I get one piece of paper every Monday and I know everything about each company by 11 o’clock in the morning.”
So what keeps a man like this going? “My business will go on beyond me. I have set up a trust that guarantees this. I want to see how far this business can go in my lifetime and to set it up for my management when I go. I’ll never retire. I love it too much.”
He recently met Matthew Riley, the owner and founder of Daisy Communications, and was impressed. “He’s a smart lad. But his business model is very different to mine. I was brought up never to borrow,” he says. “He’s borrowed left, right and centre. Good luck to him, but if his business turns down he hasn’t the ability to repay the debt. What’s the point?
“I’ve met plenty of business people over the years who have a quest for an exit, to make them comfortable for the rest of their lives.
“With me, even the bank can’t fire me. Isn’t that a great feeling? We’re debt-free, only the customers can desert me if I’m no good.”
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