Innovative shelving solutions company becomes employee-owned

fds Director Services advises Nabco Group Limited on its transition of becoming an employee ownership trust.

Nabco, which is based in St Albans, is the leading independent provider of shelving products and shopfitting accessories in the UK and was the innovator behind the Evolve range of retail shelving.

Nigel Bass founded Nabco in 1989 and has grown it over the last thirty years alongside loyal employees to be an innovative and forward-thinking company. The business has enjoyed great success over the years, including developing and trademarking specialist shelving solutions, to most recently becoming the official distributor of Modern Expo.

Nigel and Karen Bass, who are both majority shareholders, have decided to pass ownership of the business to the current employees.

The shareholders believed an employee ownership trust provides the team to continue with the company’s success and growth to date and expedite it further, whilst preserving the DNA of the business.

Nigel comments: “Whilst an EOT may not suit everyone, for our business it was spot on, the company has now been seamlessly passed onto to our great team. Our big concern for many years was how to extract ourselves from a business we had built over 30 years, simply because of time rolling on by. Poonam and the great team at FDS took us through the whole process with great ease.”

Poonam Kaur, (pictured) managing director at fds, advised Nabco’s transition to becoming an employee-owned business. Poonam comments: “It was great to see Nabco become an employee-owned business, knowing that the years of development and dedication the shareholders have given will remain with the company and will only be accelerate further by the great senior management team and workforce in place”.

Having become an EOT in 2019, fds has first-hand experience and now provides clients with a full employee ownership solution as part of their succession planning, drafting in specialist