Paul Loft: Holding Homebase’s place

Paul Loft is presiding over the second biggest home improvement chain in the country, yet he is unknown to many in the retail world.

The Homebase managing director admits he is not one to court the limelight: “I have a low profile, it’s how I like it. I’m not a self publicist. That’s just me. I’m happy being part of the team.”

But he rightly points out that he does not have a low profile within the company. Loft has worked at Homebase parent Home Retail Group, which updated the market yesterday, for nearly 11 years, starting out as finance director at Argos, where he spent nine months in the job before being packed off to Manchester to turn around the ailing home shopping arm of its then parent GUS.

Loft headed up north as his boss Terry Duddy’s right hand man. Loft recalls saying to Duddy: “You’re not going to leave me up here are you?”, to which Duddy responded: “Not if you don’t like it.” Loft must have enjoyed it, because he stayed on as managing director, knocked the business into shape and sold it to Littlewoods in 2003.

It was a defining moment for Loft, who had proved himself a capable retail leader with a set of skills suited to the sector. “It was my first real managing director role where I started and completed a mission,” he says.

Loft clearly feels at home in retail. But his career did not start on the shopfloor. Rather, the ocean floor - Loft worked for an oil company before he took his first job in retailing in 1987 working for womenswear chain Principles .

He quickly realised the oil industry did not measure up. “It is slow paced, long focused and lacked a consumer angle,” he says. “There aren’t many similarities between oil exploration and retailing. The main issue was: ‘Can we or can’t we find oil?’ Big investments are made and you have to listen to the experts. But I learnt that taking a risk isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And it’s similar to the buying process in retail - you have to back a buyer’s judgement.”

Before joining Argos Loft also worked at Debenhams before joining Shoe City and Shoe Express as managing director. But while the 49 year old may not have harboured an affiliation with retail that many of his peers claim to have had since they were youngsters, Loft regards himself as a retailer through and through. “I got into retail by accident. I didn’t realise I’d be in it for the long term then,” he says.

Loft enjoys the pace of retail. “I enjoy its immediacy - across the customers, staff and financials. It’s challenging and highly competitive.” And Loft would know, with Homebase in the firing line of a recent price-led ad campaign launched by rival B&Q earlier this year.

Home Retail acquired Homebase in November 2002, and Loft was appointed its managing director the following year.

He admits that the sector has faced a more difficult time recently. “When I came on board the outlook was good for the sector, but it’s got tougher,” he says.

Loft says his aim is for Homebase to remain a “vibrant and thriving number two in the home improvement market”. However, he adds that there is “still a long way to go” to keep its place in what is an increasingly competitive market .

In its heyday Homebase was racking up pre-tax profits just of north of £100m, and Loft wants to restore the business to similar levels of profitability. In the year to February 27, benchmark operating profit jumped 177% to £41.2m.

He describes himself as a “passionate” leader that delivers “honest messages” his staff can “believe in”. He adds: “I’m not taken to turning a drama into a crisis. I’m prepared to give contrary views to others in the organisation. I have learnt to listen - when I first came into leadership I was very much ‘I know best’.”

With like-for-likes returning to positive territory recently, it looks like Loft is coming close to hitting the nail on the head when it comes to DIY retailing.