| Forestry
BSW and Tilhill Forestry announce the vertical integration of timber supply chain
George McRobbie, Managing Director of Tilhill Forestry, has today announced the final stage of the completion of Tilhill Forestry’ s integration into the BSW Group.
T his last stage involves the combining of the BSW Sawmills UK log buying team with Tilhill Forestry’ s timber harvesting team.
The integration process will start immediately and will be a phased process completing by 31st March 2018. Once the integration is complete Tilhill Forestry will have sole responsibility for the sawlog supply into BSW’ s UK sawmills.
Tilhill Forestry will continue to supply sawlogs, small round wood and biomass to its other customers with no change to the current security of supply or contract terms.
George McRobbie said:“ This is an exciting opportunity for both companies and is a logical consolidation following the acquisition of Tilhill by BSW two years ago. This change will bring efficiency gains and provide a strong and robust foundation for us to develop improvements to the timber supply chain not just for BSW but for Tilhill’ s other customers too.”
Harry Stevens’ role on the Tilhill Board of Directors will change. He will become the Timber Buying Director and be responsible for the expanded timber buying and harvesting function. He added:“ Combining the two teams will make the best use of the skill sets and talent we have across the organisation. The new set up will be good for the company, our staff and our customers.”
Gavin Adkins’ role as Commercial Director at Tilhill will become full time and Peter Whitfield, currently Timber Operations Director, will be moving to a new role as Business Development Director. These appointments will take place with immediate effect.
Tilhill Forestry, a wholly owned subsidiary of the BSW Timber Group, was established nearly 70 years ago. It is a national company operating from a network of offices throughout the UK. The company provides a full range of consultancy and contracting services to the forest owner and forestry investor. There is also a complementary soft landscaping operation. Further information is available at www. tilhill. com
BSW is the most technologically advanced sawmill company in the UK employing over 1,300 people. The Company’ s roots date back to 1848 and, with seven sawmills in the UK and one in Latvia, has a production capacity of more than 1.2 million m3 of sawn timber which is distributed throughout construction, fencing and landscape markets www. bsw. co. uk
Together, BSW and Tilhill Forestry form a strong partnership in the forest industry that will deliver quality from beginning to end- from creating new forests through to producing timber end products.
46 | Farming Monthly | September 2017 www. farmingmonthly. co. uk