EBB delivering paper in London in the 1950s
Steeped in history
Over 100 years ago, tucked away under the pavements of Ludgate Circus in London was the very first stock of paper sold by EBB. A historic family-owned and run business, the company was founded back in 1922 by Alan Elliott who worked for a national paper merchant, selling paper. One century later, the company is into its fourth generation of Elliott ownership and management and employs around 280 staff members in the UK and Ireland, and has 11 storage and distribution sites covering the UK and Ireland.
Matt Elliott, great-grandson of Alan and son of current chairman Tim Elliott (Alan’s grandson), paints a picture of the company’s early days: “After a particularly good week, Alan Elliott decided to start trading on his own account. Elliott Baxter & Company was formed on a backing of £30 with a partner named Baxter who had put up half the money, which he didn’t appear to match with enthusiasm as he soon departed.
[L to R] Current managing director Matt Elliott with father and Chairman Tim Elliott at the company’s 100th-anniversary celebration
“Paper was initially stored in a small basement, next to some coal, under the pavements of Ludgate Circus in the City of London. The first EBB van had to be loaded on a crowded bus stop!”
Paper was initially stored in a small basement, next to some coal, under the pavements of Ludgate Circus in the City of London. The first EBB van had to be loaded on a crowded bus stop!”
Elliott explains how in 1948, John Elliott, the son of Alan, swapped his Actors’ Equity card for membership of the Paper Trade, joining the family business after an 18-month apprenticeship in a paper mill. Founder Alan then retired from active participation in the company and passed away in 1972.
Many changes
As you would imagine, the past 100 years have seen many changes for EBB with the company growing and expanding out of London and across the south and southwest of England, up North, and also into Ireland. In 1977, Alan’s grandson, Jeremy, joined the company, followed by his brother Tim three years later. In 1981, same day deliveries increased with stock capacity hitting 2,000 tonnes. The company’s 60th anniversary in 1982 saw EBB's service computerised to handle growing sales with the business running at around 150 orders a day.
(Above & below ) Alan Elliott founded EBB in 1922 and son John Elliott joined in 1948
In 1985, Tim took over as managing director with John becoming chairman where he remained until his retirement in 1991 after 44 years of building the company. Ten years later and a commemorative coin was made to mark EBB’s 75th anniversary which is now stored in the archives of The British Museum.
Just before the turn of the century, EBB acquired Howard Davies Paper in 1999, a sign of the company’s success and growth. As it continued to evolve, the year 2000 marked a significant moment – EBB made the move to the web. Two years later and the company’s 80th anniversary saw it reach £65m in sales. Two years after that was a big year for acquisitions as the company bought York & Ford Southern and rival merchant H V Beever.
The year 2005 saw Matt Elliott join the company, 25 years to the day his father joined. One year later and EBB took over Moorgate Paper’s West Country operations with Yeovil becoming its ninth branch.
Branch number ten opened in Manchester during the company’s 85th year. 2007 also saw sales of £80m and the launch of a new £1m computer system. The years that followed saw a number of moves and the opening of new branches as the business continued to grow. Revenue also continued to climb with sales hitting £96m on its 90th anniversary year. In this same year, Tim became chairman with Matt stepping up to become managing director.
Between 2014 and 2020, the company added a cartonboard and packaging division, moved its head office to Farnborough, and acquired UniBoard and Warren Board. The acquisition of UniBoard (now called Elliott Baxter Ireland) took EBB’s presence out of the UK for the first time.
100 years in business
Last year saw the company celebrate a huge milestone of 100 years in business with a gala event in London, not far from where the company’s history began. Revenue has gone from strength to strength with the company recording around £240m in 2022 – over three times its revenue in its 80th year.
With the company still a family-owned and controlled, independent paper merchant, it is easy to see why one of its core values is independence. The other three are service, stocks, and staff. Service because EBB runs its own fleet of delivery vehicles across the UK and Ireland to be able to maintain its reputation for reliable deliveries; stocks as the company’s policy is to stock paper and board in real depth locally to its customers to offer maximum choice; and staff which is demonstrated in the fact that the company currently employs almost 300 people, over 80 of whom have over ten years’ service.
Over the years, EBB has added more and more to its offering, as Elliott explains: “We offer an extensive range of market-leading paper and board products (sheets and reels) stocked in depth locally, with our fleet of our own delivery vehicles creating a reliable distribution network across the UK and Ireland.
“EBB is also a dedicated specialist supplier in commercial print papers, digital (sheet-fed), cut size, and carton board. We only have a small crossover into the sign and display area – mostly on fibre-based products in large-format sizes, for example, display boards and large-format coated sheets and greyboard.”
Reliable delivery
With 90% of EBB’s orders delivered from stock, the company delivers on average 750 tonnes across all corners of the UK and Ireland each day.
“We work with customers ranging from schools and high street ‘copy shops’, through to a multimillion-pound organisation which spends over £1m a month with us,” Matt explains, adding: “We regularly work closely with our customers to ensure that their sales staff are aware of the characteristics of our products, and more recently to ensure they have a deep understanding of the complex reasons behind the recent price increase.
EBB’s head offices are located in Farnborough, northeast Hampshire
“We always welcome the opportunity to help the sales teams of our customers understand these issues.”
A business in operation for over 100 years will have experienced some obstacles in its time (namely World War II and The Great Recession) and the current challenges such as energy prices and the cost of living increasing aren’t showing any signs of settling any time soon.
“The issues of today often seem the biggest challenges one is facing!”, Elliott says when looking back over what the company has had to face. “Looking back at the last few years, negotiating through Covid-19 was certainly a challenge, and during this having to reduce our workforce by nearly 25% to ensure that we were the right size to succeed once the economy opened up again.”
Fourth generation
With this in mind, the company has remained buoyant and more than that, successful, with Elliott saying his proudest moment was the company’s 100th anniversary. “As the fourth generation “Elliott” running the company, I felt proud to be standing in front of 350 of our staff and their partners at our Gala event in Central London, a few miles from where it all began”.
Looking to the future, Elliott says that during his custodian of the business, he plans to continue to grow its market share of paper and board products in the UK and Ireland, and continue to reinvest profits into the business to fund future growth. The company will also continue to look at acquisitions in related industries to ensure the EBB Group continues to go from strength to strength.
“We are a very proud, family-owned and operated firm,” Elliott says, adding: “If our staff are happy at work and understand the direction we are going, then we are more likely to get there.”
Here’s to the next 100 years of EBB!
Statistics
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1922 – EBB was founded by Alan Elliott
- 280 – members of staff
- 11 – storage and distribution sites
- 2022 – 100th anniversary
- £240m – projected turnover in 2022
- 4 – generations of Elliotts
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