If Matt Davies has even half the amount of enthusiasm for car batteries and mudguards as he does for dogs and reptiles Halfords is well placed to return to growth under the former Pets at Home chief executive.
Davies started his role at the car parts and bikes specialist today, as revealed by Retail Week yesterday.
It is his first role at a listed retailer, and his lack of experience in the City may have raised eyebrows in some quarters.
But few can argue with Davies’ pedigree when looking at his achievements at Pets at Home, which he transformed into a nationwide, market leading force in pets retailing.
Under Davies’ leadership, Pets At Home focused intensely on outstanding customer service and staff engagement as well as innovative products you can’t find anywhere else.
He also introduced in-store veterinary care centres and grooming parlours to extend the successful Pets at Home product offering into services.
It was not just the quality of the retail offer Davies – who is also a non-executive director at homewares chain Dunelm – improved, but also its reach across the country.
Pets at Home expanded from 140 stores to more than 300 while the affable Davies was at the helm. That expansion – and the opportunity for further growth – as well as the work on store standards and product offering all contributed to the business being sold to KKR for £955m in 2010, making it one of the biggest private equity retail deals ever.
Davies, 41, became chief executive of Pets at Home in 2004 aged 33, having joined the business as finance director in 2001. Before that he was finance director at Caudwell Communications and before then worked at NatWest Markets and NM Rothschild as a corporate finance advisor.
Halfords chairman Dennis Millard said he was “delighted to have recruited such a high-calibre leader as Matt”, noting his “impeccable service credentials and the energy and ability to drive Halfords forward”.
Independent analyst Nick Bubb this morning called Davies one of retail’s “rising stars”.
Espirito Santo analyst Sanjay Vidyarthi said of the Halfords hire: “On paper at least, the credentials and track record look as good as we could have hoped for.”
Whether or not Davies can get as excited about car parts as he does pets – he was seldom seen at Pets at Home HQ without his black Labrador Archie– remains to be seen, but his boundless enthusiasm for retail, service and product should prove a real asset for Halfords as it aims to stabilise the business after a rocky year or two.
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