Entrepreneur swops floors for feng shui

Congleton Chronicle, April 2008

Congleton entrepreneur Dawn Gibbins, MBE has sold her multimillion pound flooring company to an American firm.

The Flowcrete Group has been bought by American based RPM International for an undisclosed sum.

Flowcrete, based in Sandbach, employs 350 worldwide, with 90 based in the UK, but its management team say jobs are secure and that the deal will enable the company to grow and expand.

Miss Gibbins, (49) started the company in 1982 with her late father, Peter Gibbins.  With the help of her husband and business partner Mark Greaves, she has built the company up into a multi million pound international brand that today has 30 offices and 12 manufacturing plants around the world.

Miss Gibbins, who was the firm’s chairman, will now be focusing on her dream of creating a social enterprise that promotes the concept of feng shui.

Speaking about the sale of her firm this week she said “Flowcrete has been a central part of my life for 25 years but I am glad it is being transferred into the ownership of such an entrepreneurial  company, under a deal that gives the company a platform for growth, stability and success.

“For several months we have been looking at ways to raise funds for the group, which would give it the financial muscle to make further acquisitions.  I would not have sold if there were any risk to jobs.  A business is’nt anything without the people who work for you”.

Flowcrete specialises in seamless flooring for commercial and industrial buildings and the company reported record sales of more than £44 million last year, an increase of 24% compared to 2006.

Despite getting new owners the firm will continue to be led by the current management team, headed by Mr Greaves as managing director, who said expanding the business could create additional local jobs” I will be staying with the business together with the existing management team with a brief to further aggressively expand the business to become the world’s leading specialist flooring company.

“The jobs of the staff who currently work for the business are safe and it is likely we will be employing more staff locally and internationally as the business continues to expand”.

The company will stay on the Sandbach site on Booth Lane, Moston with no plans to leave the area.

Miss Gibbins who lives in Congleton, has a string of awards under her belt including an MBE for services to industry in 1994 and the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year title in 2003.  She has also been made a “pioneer to the life of our nation” by the Queen in 2004 and was voted most influential person in UK manufacturing in an industry poll in 2006.

She will not be retiring from business and has plans to fulfil a life-long ambition to create a social enterprise that promotes, educates and supports the concept of feng shui and healthy environments in the UK’s residential and business communities.

She also hopes to bring seamless floors to the domestic market under the Barefoot range, which could be in homes next year.

Editor's note: Inspirational, motivational speaker dawn gibbins can be contacted at dawn@dawngibbins.com