Robert Wiseman: Herd and shoulders above the rest

Published on Sunday 16 May 2010 20:20

HE WAS born on the first day of April, but Robert Wiseman is nobody's fool, particularly not in the dairy processing industry where he has worked for the whole of his 30-plus year career.

• Robert Wiseman has spent his whole career with the family firm, beginning with milk rounds at the age of 12. Picture: Robert Perry

The chief executive of the eponymous milk supply and distribution business based in East Kilbride is expected to impress City analysts this morning with news that his company has racked up its highest-ever annual profit. What began 63 years ago as a horse-and-cart milk round is today the UK's second-largest milk processor, distributing nearly one in every three litres of the "white stuff".

The company's relentless expansion has been guided by Robert Wiseman and older brother Alan, the firm's chairman, who is now semi-retired. They took over when their father, founder Robert Wiseman senior, retired in 1976 aged 60.

The younger Robert was 22 at the time, and fresh from completing his studies at Auchencruive Agricultural College in Ayrshire. As he had been doing pre-dawn milk rounds since the age of 12, his return to the family farm seemed natural.

Wiseman took up his first strategic role with what was then still a family-owned business in 1979, shouldering responsibility for a new site when the company entered the Glasgow market. By 1985 he had become managing director, and was in full swing with an extensive string of acquisitions that would amount to some 50-plus purchases in little more than 30 years.

Though Robert Wiseman Dairies has borrowed money through the years to fund expansion, the company has always been wary of overstretching its finances. The chief executive says this is down to his Presbyterian upbringing, and the fact that his father taught all five of his children that you can only spend what you can afford.

Asked recently how his company had managed through the credit crunch, Wiseman said he had always agreed to differ with those who encouraged the dairy operation to make more of its traditionally strong balance sheet.

"We have just never felt comfortable with large amounts of borrowings, even when it was deemed fashionable or even desirable by the City to take on debt," he said.

It's a strategy that has served Robert Wiseman Dairies well. When the co-operative Dairy Farmers of Britain went into receivership in June last year, Wiseman and his team at the company's former farmhouse headquarters in Nerston were able to move quickly and pick up the lion's share of that business.

Despite the company's extensive track record of takeovers, the deal represented the biggest single year volume gain for Robert Wiseman Dairies. The addition of roughly 180 million litres annually is one of the major contributors to today's anticipated rise in profits, which consensus forecasts peg at 45.5 million before tax, versus 32.6m previously.

It's not all plain sailing, however. As Wiseman himself is fond of saying, his is a logistics business that happens to have dairies attached at one end. The company has thrived on a strategy of cutting distribution costs by putting processing facilities in accessible and affordable locations next to the cows they rely upon.

But even this cannot fully insulate Robert Wiseman Dairies from hits such as the recent increase in diesel duty, or fluctuating commodity prices that raise the cost of its plastic containers. The well-travelled Wiseman knows only too well the impact of higher energy costs, both professionally and personally.

Though the company remains headquartered at the former family home on the outskirts of Glasgow, Wiseman and wife Paula live in Auchterarder, Perthshire. He also has a second home in Spain, where some of his seven children attend school as part of their father's ambition to ensure they are bilingual.

Wiseman, however, does not speak any foreign languages. He frequently retorts that he has "enough" on his hands speaking English.

Such assertions downplay his communication skills though. His management style is described as simple, direct, consistent and challenging. He explains that his aim is to employ good people to whom he can delegate, and then "conduct the orchestra", rather than play all the instruments himself.

"But there is no doubting who the boss is," says one of the company's many long-serving managers. "Robert's characteristics as a chief executive are such that, if you work here, you utterly buy into the style that he has."

Now aged 55, Wiseman helped lead the company through a flotation in 1994 that paved the way for the Scottish firm's expansion into England. The family sold 25 per cent of the company for 14m, and used the proceeds to build the first of its English "super-dairies" on the outskirts of Manchester.

The family's stake in the business now hovers around 36 per cent, with chief executive Robert as the biggest individual shareholder. However, the family owns a smaller slice of a much bigger pie, with about 80 per cent of the company's business volumes now generated south of the border.

Where Wiseman Dairies might go from here is a bit of an imponderable. Though there is scope to edge out rival Arla to become the UK's leading milk supplier, the company's already formidable market share makes major expansion unlikely.

But a move into affiliated products, such as cheese or yoghurt, seems equally improbable. Wiseman has long shunned any temptation to stray from its core milk business, having methodically sold off associated operations that have come under its control through years of acquisitions.

BROTHERS IN FARMS

BORN in April 1955, Robert Tennent Wiseman is the third of five children. Siblings Alan and Gavin also work at Robert Wiseman Dairies, as chairman and purchasing director respectively.

Robert officially joined the family business in 1975 at the age of 21, though he had been running milk rounds for his father since the age of 12. He was appointed managing director in 1985, and became chief executive after a board restructuring in 2002.

His drive to expand the business won him the Ernst & Young UK Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2003.

Wiseman also holds an honorary degree in business administration from Napier University, and currently serves as vice-chairman of industry federation Dairy UK.