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TWST: Can we begin with an historical sketch and overview of the Eliza Tinsley Group (London: TNL.L)?

Mr. Hall: Eliza Tinsley has been existence for over 130 years. But if we skip the first 110 of those years, the Company went to the main market in 1984, when the founding family decided to realize some of their investment. And really for about 10 years it sat there as a small business not doing a great deal. Its main base was the manufacturer and sale of link chain to the do-it-yourself industry. In 1994, with the advent of Non-Executive Directors, I was asked to come on board and drive the Company forward, which we have done. We have built the Company into a two division business. The main division, which is about a 75% to 80% of the turnover, we call the Off-Highway Division. It sells components and assemblies, largely metal fabrications and related pieces to the likes of Caterpillar, Komatsu, JCB, Terex -- pretty much all the major construction companies. We have plants doing that in the UK, North America, and Italy. The other division is a historic division that used to just make chain. We've now expanded that business very much into rope, padlocks and security devices. Over last three or four years, instead of making all these products ourselves, we now source from China, India, Slovakia and then apply our own branding and distribution skills. That's purely a UK based businesses, selling to the major DIY multiples, and we have something like an 80% market share.

TWST: Has that 75/25 split between the two businesses been fairly constant or have you been growing one of the divisions more aggressively?

Mr. Hall: In reality, when I joined the group in 1994, the Off-Highway division didn't exist. It was just a chain business. So really, Off-Highway business has grown by a series of acquisitions, normally 50% debt, 50% equity acquisitions, throughout the mid-90s. Then in 1998, we took over another PLC called James Dickey, which expanded our customer base in the UK and also gave us operations in America. We've grown that American activity from something like 6 or 7 million turnover to 23 or 24 million at the current level, and we've grown it profitably. Anyone can grow a business, growing it profitably is hard. Then, just over year-and-a-half ago, we bought a business in Italy, to complete the geographic expansion. In contrast, the Consumer Products business has really remained constant; we've just grown its profitability by changing the supply line.

TWST: With that done, what do you see as the main objectives over the next year to eighteen months?

Mr. Hall: The strategy splits between the 2 divisions, because there's no real linkage between the two on the face of it. If we take the Consumer Products division -- over the last 3 or 4 years, we have built a whole supply line out of China and India, and to some extent Slovakia. That has given us a very competitive position worldwide, in terms of costs for our products. But our intention for the Consumer Products business is to continue to develop it, not to expand it geographically outside the UK, but to put more and more product from our Chinese and Indian supply lines into the market we're currently serving. So, it's just range expansion, and having the strong brand and logistics distribution that we've got, together with now our low-cost sourcing lines, we believe we can do that. For the Off-Highway business, I think there are two major things we wish to achieve. I have a view, which is shared by the Board, that manufacturing generally in the Western world, be it Europe America or the UK, is going to be quite a challenging environment. And we intend to try and bring in a significant part of the product we end up assembling and finishing from some of the lower cost economies. So, right now we're looking in Poland and China and we are working in Mexico. We are utilizing the experience we've developed in the Consumer Products Division to look for supply lines for our Highway Division so that we can then take kits of components that we can finally assemble, paint, and deliver to our customers in Europe. I think that is a transition we see happening. I can't stress enough -- we've got the experience of doing that from our Consumer Products business. The other thing that we will be looking to do, as I say, is to get this balance. We still need to grow our business in Italy, and expand to take advantage of some good market opportunities in America.