Christy Wryce built his company on a philosophy of well-trained staff and good business relations, but there was no soft landing when the recession hit

CHRISTY WRYCE left school at 15. He was a bright child and a good student, but there was no history of anyone finishing school in his family and Christy followed his father and brothers into the building trade.

He subsequently served his time as an electrician and went to work for an international contracting company operating in the Middle East. He made good money and saved hard, and returned to Ireland with enough capital to buy a nice house and go into business.

Wryce bought a hardware shop in the Dublin suburbs with a large yard at the back where he kept a small amount of builders’ supplies. This side of the business thrived and he subsequently relocated to a bigger premises in an industrial estate. He eventually sold the hardware shop to focus on developing the building supplies business into something larger, while also branching out into electrical wholesale.

Wryce turned out to be an astute businessman. The operation grew and prospered and, by the mid-1980s, it had a turnover of €8 million and employed 26 people. During the boom years in the building trade here, the company’s turnover more than doubled and employment rose to 40 people.

Over the years, the company developed a very good reputation in its sectors. Wryce was passionate about having knowledgeable, well-trained and helpful staff who would always go the extra mile for their customers. As a result, customers came from far and wide and the business thrived.

Wryce could have sat back and enjoyed the ride, but that was not his style. He was a hard worker, constantly looking for ways to improve the business. He invested consistently in staff training, was committed to promoting from within and the business ran like a well-oiled machine.

On the commercial side of things, he kept the operation tight. Aware that waste was potentially a lethal cost for a business of his sort and that builders had a reputation for being slow payers, Wryce was vigilant about monitoring inventory and was fair but firm with suppliers and customers alike. He always paid his bills on time and expected others to do the same.

Growth during the boom was a lot more rapid than Wryce was comfortable with. Initially, he tried not to get sucked in, but eventually felt he had no choice but to go with the flow as customers continued to place bigger and bigger orders. Against his better judgment, he took on more staff and found himself managing 55 people.

What bothered him most about this was that he had to take what he could get in terms of labour, rather than handpicking employees, as he had done previously. Up to then, his staff had all pulled together as a team, but he found a divide opening up between the “old” and “new” staff members and, because of the pressures on the business, there was no time to thoroughly train the new people.

Systems that worked when the business was developing steadily began creaking under the weight of the exponential growth, and Wryce began to work longer hours. Normally someone who thought carefully about things, he found himself increasingly making decisions on the hop. This went right against the grain and, deep down, he knew there would be a day a reckoning.

The first signs of that day arrived about three years ago when orders began to slow down. Initially, Wryce thought it reflected a seasonal trend, exacerbated by a period of bad weather. But, after three months, he could see that things had changed. He was initially relieved that the pressure was off and like everyone else in the industry, looked forward to the soft landing that would see growth return to more sustainable levels.

Despite the warnings of one or two prophets of doom in the media, Wryce found it hard to believe that he and his customers were standing at the edge of a precipice. He had lived through the recession of the early 1980s and was confident that a battening down of the hatches would see him thorough.

The first big shock came when one of his largest developer clients went into liquidation in early 2008, leaving him with a real cashflow problem. The liquidator told him it was most unlikely that, as an unsecured creditor, he could expect to get back anything more than 50 cent in the euro, if even that. However, in order to get that, it would be necessary for the liquidator to finish out and sell the development of 50 homes currently underway on the outskirts of Dublin.

Would Wryce continue to supply materials, for which he would be paid in full, although not immediately, in order to get something back on the huge amount already outstanding? Wryce’s accountant argued against it. Wryce felt he had little choice: he agreed to support the liquidator. As he ruefully admitted later, it was his worst error of judgment in all his years in business.

The liquidator soon found himself in even deeper water and sinking fast. With houses prices falling sharply and no buyers in sight, he shut the site. Even worse, as far as Wryce was concerned, was the impact on his cashflow. He still had to pay for the additional supplies he had provided to the liquidator and suddenly found he was running out of options. Reflecting the general downturn, other customers were increasingly slow to pay and Wryce was concerned that there were others teetering on the edge.

Wryce called an emergency meeting with his solicitor and accountant and thrashed out a fairly grim course of action, including letting go a large number of staff, including some who had been with him for years. Given the financial situation he was in, it would have to be minimum notice and statutory redundancy payments only.

Implementing the cuts upset Wryce hugely. He genuinely felt he owed more to long-serving staff and that he had failed them.

Wryce had hoped the remaining team would pull together, but this is not what has happened. The atmosphere in the workplace has turned sour and his once easy relationship with his staff has gone.

Business has begun to show some small signs of picking up, although margins remain under severe pressure. But Wryce’s relationship with his suppliers also appears to have deteriorated. Word has clearly got out that he is in trouble and suppliers are suspicious. His bank has done little to support him in the crisis.

Several suppliers have made a point of bringing him in and warning him that any failure to meet agreed terms will mean an automatic suspension of all credit facilities. Wryce is not used to feeling he is not trusted and it hurts as much as the harsh words from some of the people he was forced to let go.

Wryce desperately wants to rebuild the reputation he used to enjoy, both inside and outside the firm. He has tried to act with honesty and integrity at all times, but now he fears that this is simply not going to be enough to sustain him through what still look like tough times ahead.

At this point, he is totally disillusioned and is seriously considering closing the business completely