E&A Limited boss Stephen Young’s plans to turn Nobles around

SA businessman Stephen Young has unveiled his plans to revive historic SA company Nobles, years after his own firm won its own battle for survival.

He’s the white knight who saved one of the state’s oldest companies from collapse, and while well known as a mover and shaker in the state’s business circles, few are aware of the scale of Stephen Young’s growing business empire.

Over the past 25 years, Mr Young’s investment firm E&A Limited (EAL) has been buying and restructuring underperforming companies across the mining, energy and defence industries, and now oversees 12 businesses employing close to 1500 staff across the country.

And while EAL’s latest acquisition may not be its largest, it is perhaps the most iconic brand in the portfolio, with a rich history dating back to 1911.

At its peak Nobles employed close to 300 staff and was the country’s largest supplier of lifting and rigging services, designing, distributing and manufacturing products including wire ropes, synthetic and chain slings, hoisting equipment and other industrial components.

But attempts to restructure the company following the end of the mining boom failed, and the company was eventually placed in administration in June.

E&A Limited managing director Stephen Young at the Nobles factory in Kilburn. Picture: Mark Brake

Creditors later approved a rescue plan pitched by EAL, which formally took over ownership of the company earlier this month.

Mr Young acknowledges it’s a risk but says that’s inherent in his line of business.

“To give you a sense of the magnitude of the risk, we ended up advancing the administrator a couple of hundred thousand dollars to pay wages in the first week that he was appointed, so it gives you a sense of how parlous the affairs of Nobles were,” he said.

“What you need to do is think strategically, and then act decisively.”

EAL has already started making some serious changes.

It has shut down the company’s product sales division - the initial foundations of the Nobles brand - while the engineering and lifting and rigging services arms will be co-located with other EAL businesses at sites across the country.

About 55 employees will be terminated, leaving a workforce of about 100, led by Nobles chief executive Rhys Goldsworthy who will stay on with the company.

Mr Young is confident the changes will help turn things around.

But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing for EAL, which like Nobles, found itself in deep financial trouble following the end of the mining boom.

The company posted back-to-back losses in 2014-15 and 2015-16, de-listed from the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in 2017 following a collapse in its share price, and then in 2018 its Ottoway Engineering and Ottoway Fabrication businesses in Whyalla fell into administration with debts of $45m.

Mr Young said the company was pushed to the brink, but with the help of its lenders, it survived and took the company in a new direction.

“The collapse of the mining construction boom was devastating for EAL,” he said.

“We had more than $70m in contract disputes which took us four years to work through.

“We received outstanding support from our bank at that time and really it was their support that enabled us to survive.

“We were able to raise capital that enabled us to fund the litigation, which ultimately we won, but generally speaking litigation’s for losers - even when you win at court you lose.

“We learned valuable lessons and concluded that we did not have sufficient balance sheet strength to undertake large ‘hard money’ construction work, and we shifted our entire business focus away from construction to the provision of maintenance services.”

Mr Young said the strategy was delivering for EAL, which now generates about $300m in revenue and $20m in cash surpluses each year.

He said the company was “battle hardened”, putting it in good stead to carry on the iconic Nobles brand well into the future.

“Staff were shocked about the demise of Nobles as they knew it, but now that they’ve got their minds around where the business is headed, those that have been retained are excited and committed to making sure that the business prospers in the future.”