How a 105-year-old Brisbane firm survived two world wars, depression and now COVID-19
A 105-year-old Brisbane company that has survived two world wars, a depression and now COVID-19 has revealed the secrets of success.
QLD Business
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Robert Falzon says the key to the survival of his 105-year-old metal working company Minnis & Samson is adaption, flexibility and looking after people.
How else could a small metal-working firm that began life making church candlesticks holders and incense burners survive two world wars, a depression and go on to complete multi-million fit outs for luxury hotels, super yachts and ferry terminals.
“There is a certain amount of luck in it, but you make your own luck,” says Falzon of the Brisbane firm he took over in the 1990s. “I believe Minnis & Samson has been blessed to a certain extent. Our founders went through world wars and a depression and now we are surviving COVID-19.”
There are no robots or automated production lines at the Minnis & Samson factory- just work benches where workers cut and grind metal into the finished product.
“It is hard to find quality tradespeople so when we do get them, we hold on to them even during quiet times,” Falzon says.
Falzon says manufacturers have faced a tough time recently but those that found new markets would survive. “We used to make things like café tables and chairs but now it all comes from China,” he says. “Manufacturers have to find new niche markets and adapt like Minnis & Samson has done over the past 105 years.
“Who would have thought a company that started out making church candesticks holders would end up fitting out ferry terminals and hotels.”
He says the firm is now looking to the future without turning its back on its past. Revenue has doubled to about $3 million in the past five years as it took on a wider range of projects. “We are now diversifying into roads and bridges and are focusing our efforts on how to survive another 100 plus years,” he says. “There were a lot of times in the past when I thought this is killing me and I should close it down but I refused to.”
Falzon says COVID-19 has resulted in a slowing of business but employees has used the down time to improve their quality assurance systems. It has not had to lay off any staff.
The company story began when G Minnis and Ted Samson started the company in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley area during World War One.
“They were craftsmen who had some connection with the church,” says Falzon as he looks over early drawings done by the men for church chancel lamps and candelabras. However, it was war rather than religion that gave the fledgling firm its first big break.
“A lot of the metal manufacturers down south were tied up with war work so Minnis & Samson managed to get a big contract with General Motors which was ramping up its car factories in Australia,” he says. That work involved chrome plating bumper bars and producing other components for the US giant’s vehicles.
The firm, which is now based in Meadowbrook south of Brisbane, later diversified into residential and commercial work.
An advertisement on a Brisbane bus in the 1950s boasted the company, then based in Barry Parade in the Valley, was an expert in chrome plating and resilvering as well as being the manufacturers of “tubular chrome bathroom fittings, rails and display stands.”
Ted Samson and G Minnis went on to run the company for the next 60 years finally selling to their accountant in the 1980s.
At the time, Queensland was experiencing a tourist boom with hotel and resort construction fuelled by Japanese money allowing Minnis & Samson to pick up big fit out projects. Falzon, who was running a business called Furniture Manufacturers of Australia (FMA) at the time, bought the firm in the 1990s because of the synergies between the two operations.
“FMA got the fitout projects for the cabinets, woodwork and furniture while Minnis & Samson got the work for things like staircases and railings,” he says. “This was before the advent of China when the majority of furniture manufacturing was still done in Australia.”
The good times for tourism, and Falzon’s business concerns, however came to a shuddering halt in the early 2000s.
“The hospitality boom collapsed,” recalls Falzon. “This was the time of the Ansett collapse. Not a single hotel was built in Australia for a decade after that.”
Despite the grim outlook, Minnis & Samson was again at the receiving end of some good luck or blessing. “I was working alone late one night at the office when I received a phone call from someone in New Zealand,” says Falzon.
The call turned out to be from a billionaire who wanted his superyacht fitted out. “This was a $3 million contract and it came at just the right time,” he says.
“We ended up becoming one of the biggest yacht outfitters in the southern hemisphere but I often wonder what would have happened if I wasn’t in the office to take the call that night. He might have rung my competitor.”
About the same time, Falzon was reassessing his life and the toll his business commitments were taking on his personal life.
“One year I spent 90 days away from home and at the time I had four school-aged children,” he says. “You either grow up or grow down and I felt I had reached a crisis of limitations.”
He sold his furniture business but kept ownership of Minnis & Samson, allowing him to concentrate on projects that were becoming increasingly sophisticated and specialised.
In the past decade and a half, the firm’s team of 20 workers has manufactured metal work for some of Queensland’s landmark projects including the Cultural Centre’s cicada sculpture, CityCat terminals and the new Fortitude Music Hall.
Earlier this year, Minnis & Samson took out a national industry award for The Star Gold Coast’s Cherry Bar, a four month project that involved installing more than 2300 Swarovski crystals. “We were competing against national companies and didn’t think we were going to win it,” he says. “When we did, it was a pleasant surprise.”
Falzon says manufacturing techniques have certainly changed since the early days of Ted Samson using paper and pencil to draw plans for a church candelabra.
“We work with artists these days to produce the designs on a computer in 3D,” he says. “What hasn’t changed is the fact everything is still made by hand.”
