County Tyrone door designer and manufacturer O&S Doors has made its first significant breakthrough in the US market.
It has sent an initial shipment from its 410,000 sq ft base at Syerla Road in Benburb to a customer in Chicago which supplies doors on a large scale to multi-family apartments on the west coast.
O&S sales & marketing director and part-owner Tim Dillon says the deal has the potential for around £5 million of additional revenues a year and lead to the recruitment of at least 20 new staff.
And he also believes it could be the catalyst for a series of new orders in the States from customers spread from Chicago to New York, New Jersey and Florida in the east.
“This is a massive breakthrough for us after many months of hard graft,” said Tim.
“We previously operated exclusively within the UK and Ireland, and while we did consider expanding into Europe, we felt the American market would offer us the more lucrative opportunities.
“I reached out to a number of companies, but then started dialogue with a supplier in Chicago.
“We sent them samples, we did testing, and then they placed this first order a few months ago.
“We created new materials for them, so it’s taken a bit of time, but now the first containers are leaving today,” he added.
Progress has also been made with a large distributor about coverage across the whole US as well as Canada.
“It’s all based on this first order and how it develops, but it’s exciting,” Tim says.
“The customer we’re supplying in Chicago inspected doors from Vietnam, China and US suppliers.
“And while we weren’t the cheapest and our lead times are obviously much greater given our location, what swung it for O&S was our quality and service, which is a tremendous endorsement.
“As well as myself and the sales team, many other people in the O&S business have been central to this success, from those researching transport and logistics to those actually making the doors on the shop floor. It’s been a monumental team effort.”
O&S provides more than 60,000 door styles & finish combinations a week for kitchen, bedroom and bathroom cabinet products.
Its most recent set of accounts (up to December 2022) show that revenues increased from £45.3 million to £48.9 million while pre-tax profit rose from £4.4m to £6.5m.
Last year the company, which was established in 1999 by entrepreneur Peter O’Donnell, was taken over by Rubicon Partners in what was the seventh investment by the London equity firm through its institutional fund Rubicon Partners Fund V.
