| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Petroleum |
| Founded | 1919 in Bayford, Hertfordshire |
| Headquarters | Bowcliffe Hall, UK |
| Key people |
Chairman: David Turner Director: John Turner Chief Executive: Jonathan Turner Managing Director: Liz Slater Finance Director: Phil Hall Operations Director: James Spencer |
| Products | Fuels, lubricants, greases |
| Website | www.bayfordgroup.co.uk |
Bayford & Co is a British petrol and oil distribution company founded in 1919 in Leeds, England. The Company has grown to a group with a Turnover of £335 million and profits of £2.0 million in 2006-07.[1] Bayford is No. 58 in the Sunday Times Top Track 250 List of Companies.
The Company was founded in Leeds by four survivors of the World War I who decided to pool their resources to establish a coal agents business. Whilst searching for a suitable title for their enterprise, they hit on the idea of using the name of the Hertfordshire village of Bayford where they had been demobilized at the end of the war. They were joined by Frederick Turner as an office junior. He eventually rose to become the Company Chairman and remained so until the 1970s. The Bayford company maintained a steady growth in the solid fuel business in the first period of its life - successfully weathering difficult periods such as the General Strike, World War II and the nationalisation of the coal industry. The firm then diversified into the petrol and oil distribution business as coal declined.
David Turner (the present Chairman) joined his father Frederick in the business in 1958 and in 1962 it was David Turner’s decision to start selling oil, based on the view that as more and more people were turning from coal to oil for home heating, “one followed the customer or lost the business”. In 1967 Bayford moved to new premises in Pepper Road, off Hunslet Road, Leeds and Bayford also began importing cargoes of oil from abroad via Immingham, to feed its Fleet storage facility and its tankers. This was a first for a UK independent company.
In 1969 Bayford decided to market low price petrol. The name Thrust was inspired by news reports of Concorde’s maiden flight and the description of the “tremendous thrust” of its engines. The first petrol pump to carry the new sign, complete with the Concorde insignia, was in Ossett, West Yorkshire. Motorists soon began to realise that they had had enough of promotional gimmicks and would prefer to keep the cash – Thrust offered savings of up to six old pence per gallon. Thrust rapidly built up to a chain of 45 outlets by the end of 1970 and 85 by 1972.
In 1970 Bayford Developments started trading by purchasing investment properties in Biggin Hill and Mitchum in Surrey.
In June 1974 the Yorkshire Evening Post carried a full-page article for the firms Burley Road Filling Station, a station that had been acquired a year earlier and extensively re-furbished. Following the switch to Thrust, sales increased from 36,000 litres a week to 200,000 litres, with prices of 50.6 pence per gallon for Two Star and 52.6 pence for Five Star (Old Fuel Rating prior to RON No.) By 1976 Bayford was delivering 100,000 tones of coal each week to Yorkshire’s power stations, after striking an agreement with the CEGB (Central Electricity Generating Board). Bayford continued to supply significant quantities of coal into the 1990s, and during the 1980s were also supplying some 3 million litres of oil per day to the region’s power stations. By June, Bayford was supplying over one hundred sites in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Cheshire and the North of Wales.
By 1979 the company's 15-acre (61,000 m2) storage depot by the Aire and Calder Canal at Woodlesford's annual throughput of fuel had risen to 150,000 tons per year. “Fleet” had given Bayford total control of their storage and distribution network, from the refinery gates right through to the customer.
Bayford was still heavily involved in the coal market in the 1980s. At its peak, Bayford Mining was producing from sites in Yorkshire, Lancashire and in the North and East of Scotland. The average life of an opencast mine was around eighteen months, after which time the land was restored to its former use.
In 1988 Bayford moves into new headquarters at Bowcliffe Hall in Bramham – a 19th century listed building next to the Bramham Park Grounds.
In the first of several acquisitions, Bayford took over Holderness Fuel Supplies Ltd in 1991. Holderness had a throughput of 35 million litres from three depots, in Leeds, Killingholme on Humberside and Malton in North Yorkshire. Bayford bought out British Fuel’s share of the Fleet Storage facility at Woodlesford in 1993. Bayford acquired twenty-two Yorkshire filling stations from Elf Oil (UK) Ltd and seven petrol station sites in the North East from Texaco, which were operated under the Thrust Petroleum brand in 1994. Bayford acquired the commercial oil business, Burmah Petroleum Fuels Ltd in 1995. The move effectively tripled the size of Bayford’s oil business and made it Britain's largest privately owned distributor of commercial oils.
Transport Minister Glenda Jackson officially opened the refurbished storage depot, at Woodlesford, near Leeds, in 1999. Bulk fuel supplies were now delivered to the depot by barge from East coast refineries, using the Aire and Calder canal. This would save an estimated 16,000 road tanker journeys over the next five years - a fact which helped Bayford to secure a Freight Facilities Grant (FFG). Total investment in the site was over £300,000.
Jonathan Turner was appointed Managing Director of the "Bayford Group" in 2000.
Bayford Thrust obtained the permit for the sale of Leaded Four Star. Whilst banning the sale of leaded fuel, the Government (after heavy lobbying by the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs) agreed to make a limited volume available to special interest groups. Bayford is the only company to have a nationwide distributor permit. Bayford acquired BP’s northern commercial fuel business, Dominion Oils (previously Wayahead Fuels). This included depots in Halifax, Sheffield and York, complementing the existing operations in Leeds, Northallerton, Keighley and Immingham.
In 2001 Bayford gained the UK rights to the Gulf brand, in a deal with Gulf Oil International, and also launched a new business, (Gulf Lubricants UK Ltd), in association with Gulf, to market and sell lubricants. The company becomes involved with a £47m deal to buy the 400-strong network of Save petrol stations, the largest independent petrol network in the UK. Jonathan Turner became joint Managing Director alongside his role at Bayford. These sites were eventually sold on to independent petrol station operators (many becoming Gulf sites) or in some cases, for redevelopment.
Bayford launched Countrywide Fuel Cards in partnership with BP in 2003, selling fuel cards through BP branded sites. Bayford also launched InterCity Fuel Cards in partnership with Shell, operating initially as separate businesses. In March 2004, the Bayford oil business grew again with the opening of a new office in the North East. This took the number of oil businesses to seven. The group was now able to deliver fuel from Lincolnshire right up to Northumberland together with North Wales. In August 2005 Bayford & Co purchases Delta Fuels. Based in Kendal on the edge of the Lake District, to complemented the company’s existing operations. As well as taking over John Ellis Fuels in North Wales. Bayford acquired three new fuel card businesses, Central Fuel Cards, Truckhaven Ltd and Routemate Fuel Cards. This saw Bayford’s fuel card business become the only company to have partnerships with the three biggest fuel brands in the UK, Esso, Shell and BP, as well as adding the most widely accepted diesel-bunkering card on the market, to its portfolio. By taking over three fuel card businesses and the two fuel distribution companies, as well as an industry-related technology firm (PMD), Bayford earned itself the title of ‘Acquirer of the Year 2006’ at the Business XL Magazine Company of the Year Awards.[2]
Bayford was listed in the Sunday times List of Best Employers for 2006. The Sunday Times said of Bayford, “Having fun at the same time as meeting corporate objectives is the bottom line for the company.” Following a year of record profits and sustained organic growth, Bayford completed the acquisition of Askham Oil Supplies, one of the UK’s leading Authorised Distributors for Texaco. Bayford’s fuel distribution operations now extend from North Wales to the Lincolnshire coast, and right up to the Scottish border.