One of the year's biggest deals in the City has been pulled off by Essex-based Roy Eady who led the management buy-out team that has acquired Everest Double Glazing.

Eady, 49, who lives in Shenfield instructed Brentwood based solicitors Wortley Byers in the £58m agreed bid.

A six strong management team has acquired 22 per cent of the business that sees the complete exit of 3i and also provides an exit for the former majority shareholder Brian Kennedy who in turn has reinvested a substantial sum to acquire a significant shareholding in the new company.

Eady, who lived in Blackmore and Stondon Massey before moving to Shenfield with his wife Eileen to be closer to Brentwood School where his two sons are being educated, began his business career as a chartered accountant with Touche Ross.

Before moving into Everest he was joint managing director at Romford double glazing rival BAC where he had come up through the ranks.

He was persuaded to jump ship by Brian Kennedy who had become disenchanted with Everest's reputation for quality control and less than sparkling profits.

Eady joined Everest as chairman in 1999 and in less than four years has helped re-engineer the business to the point where it is now the number two double glazing giant in Britain, with a much larger product line that includes "wire free" security systems, top of the range automatic garage doors, roofline products and replacement timber sash windows.

Employee numbers are up by 200 and an operating profit of £12m in the current year is being projected with possibly sales climbing to £150m by 2006.

During the "old" Caradon management's last year running Everest the sales totalled £93.4m with £1.6m operating profits.

Under Eady's "new broom" management sales rose to £111m, but more importantly profits soared to £10.2m.

Published Monday, June 2, 2003

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