Rocking the world from Matamata [the Barmac years]

Paul Tidmarsh has spent his working life trying to make himself redundant. Fortunately for the world’s rock crushing industry, he hasn’t succeeded.  The first in a two-part profile by ALAN TITCHALL.

He’s known as the ‘rock wizard’ for good reason. The international adoption of the Barmac crushing machine, invented in the small Waikato township of Matamata in the late 1970s, and the rise of Rocktec as a world renowned specialist quarry and mining engineering company, all carry Paul Tidmarsh’s golden touch.

He sold his Matamata-based Barmac manufacturing and distribution company to Svedala some 20 years ago and, more recently, his Rocktec engineering business to Stevensons. Now he’s into industrial minerals. Over a leisurely lunch, Paul Tidmarsh presents his new business card with his title ‘founding director’, divulging his secret to success before we have even finished the mains.

“I’ve always put in a managing director above myself, because it’s always been my goal to make myself redundant,” he says candidly.

“That’s how you do it – free yourself up so you become the ideas man by leaving management in place to do the job. All my life I have prescribed to this – make myself redundant – which has the absolute opposite effect.”

It’s a tactic that certainly makes money. Tidmarsh’s career path, from leaving school at the age of 14 to his current involvement with Blue Pacific Minerals, is paved with the sort of dollar figures that made me wish I had ordered a more expensive bottle of wine for lunch and left him with the bill. In 1989, after sealing the sellout deal with international crusher giant Svedala, Tidmarsh headed off to the local Westpac branch to pay off his overdraft, writing out a cheque for over eight million dollars.

“We were making money; the business had enjoyed a low dollar for exports and high margins.”

In 1987, the family bought a farm in the prime Waikato on the advice of his accountant and then, after selling the company bought the farms next door. He also bought a beach house. “We built the 1150 acre diary farm up over 17 years until it was one of the best in the country.”

Last year the farm sold for (then) a record price in New Zealand. He declines to say how much the sale of Rocktec to Stevensons added to the family coffers.

And it all started in the 1970s when he spotted a can-like contraption on the floor of Keith Neiderer’s workshop in Auckland. After learning the welding trade, the young Paul Tidmarsh set up a small engineering business in Matamata in the 1960s. In 1971 the company was subcontracted to manufacturer Hammermill rock crushers and, through repair jobs in quarries, he got to know Neiderer, aka Mr Quarryman.

The contraption was the invention of Bryan Bartley and Jim McDonald who came up with the idea of using stone to crush stone, rather than the conventional steel jaws or hammers. By 1970 they had a crusher called the McDonald Impactor that work in principle, but not good enough to be commercially viable. That was until Tidmarsh took it home and made what he says were some “commonsense” modifications.

In the mid 1970s, PL Tidmarsh Ltd started making the new impactor (now called a Barmac) as a subcontractor for the three New Zealand companies who had licenses with Barmac Associates. Licenses were also granted to companies in the UK, Australia and Japan.

The Tidmarsh-made Barmac machines were of very high quality. The second unit ever made was reportedly still in use at Hunua in 1997. By 1980, Tidmarsh could see the international potential of the machine and sought a bigger role in its future.

“We found out we were the only one who had a working machine, so I approached all the licensees and said, ‘I’ll make a universal machine you can all sell, instead of us all going down different tracks’.”

The company began manufacturing the Barmac machine for all the licensees with the exception of Kemco in Japan.

The next step was his own marketing license and in 1980, Tidmarsh became a licensee for North America. In 1981, he formed a subsidiary of PL Tidmarsh called Tidco to market the Barmac in North America, bringing in as a minority (25 percent) shareholder Andi Lusty who was to be responsible for marketing – applying his rule of getting in minority stake holders on the management floor.

Unfortunately, Barmac Associates had also given America licenses to Neiderer Machinery and another to Kemco in Japan. “I could sell into America, but had to compete with my counter-part and Japanese opposition. I approached Keith Neiderer and said ‘this is not going to work – I should buy your American license’. We came to a deal in 1982.”

By the following year Tidmarsh had also bought the other Kiwi licenses, and in 1985 acquired the Australian and UK licenses. With only Japan to compete with, Tidco-made Barmac machines made huge inroads into the international crusher world over the next few years. The machine is a Vertical Shaft Impactor (VSI) that uses a fast spinning rotor to throw rock against rock, reducing them to gravel and sand at the last stage of crushing. Simple to make, but difficult to apply, the international success of the machine was not just about build quality.

“Making the crusher is easy, but making it work isn’t. Each machine has to be customised for its specific site and the material being processed,” says Tidmarsh.

In 1987, just before the iron curtain came down, Tidmarsh went to Hungary to set up a 60/40 joint venture to make machines in the Soviet block. No machines were actually built there, but the deal proved a valuable distribution point for the Kiwi-made inventory, particularly after the Berlin Wall fell and the machine could be marketed through Eastern Europe and the rest of Europe. This is when Swedish crusher giant Svedala started to feel the Barmac heat on its sales turf, and took an interest in what was being produced from the little town of Matamata at the bottom of the world. 

The effects of the 1987 stock market crash came late to the quarry industry, but by 1989 Barmac sales were starting to feel the economic bite. Tidco was heavy with staff – 155 in total, 50 of those spread in distribution centres around the world. Fortuitously, this was the year the Swedes came knocking at the door.

“I couldn’t wait to sign,” Tidmarsh admits. “I don’t know if I would have survived or not. I don’t like to think about it.”

The sale to Allis Mineral Systems, a subsidiary of Svedala Industri AB, went through in 1989 pretty much on his terms. Svedala also bought out Barmac Associates in 1994. The Swedes only wanted the VSI manufacturing side but ended up with all the Tidco divisions, land and buildings. It also agreed to stay in Matamata, keep on staff and retain the name Tidco for three years. Tidmarsh paid off his overdraft, bought another boat (which he still has), and stayed on as a manager.

“I didn’t intend getting back into engineering again – the opportunity simply popped its head up.”

Two years after buying Tidco, the Swedes approached Tidmarsh and asked his advice on off-loading its non-Barmac interests.

“I told them they could do one of three things: have a fire sale, put them on ice, or bundle them up and sell them as a going concern – then I will buy them and you can get someone else to do my job. The way I have always explained it – I sold the business warts and all, and bought all the warts back again.”

Taking the non-Barmac businesses and five mid-level managers with him, Tidmarsh started over again in 1991, calling the new company Rocktec and gave himself the title … ‘founding director’.

Part 2: Rocking the world from Matamata [the Rocktec years]