The GJB Group acquired Listers five years ago and has since become a text-book example of a successful merger between trade fabricators. Part of this success is a mutual ambition to learn from each other, according to sales director, Rob Waller.

Established by Ken Blackman and Gary Bristow, Essex-based GJB Developments & Newbuild was a well-loved local fabricator with a limited product range when Roy Frost bought it in 2017. Since then, the business acquired Stoke-based Listers and has broadened its product offering, opening up new opportunities for its customer base.

According to sales director Rob Waller, who has been with GJB since 2013, the trade fabricator focused its efforts on meeting the demand for volume white PVC-U windows, manufactured using Eurocell profile. Since 2017, Listers has operated as a single company, with the Essex operation taking on more product ranges as a result.

Today, customers can buy all products, in aluminium and PVC-U, from a single source.

“We moved from being a white window fabricator to a one-stop-shop for a wide variety of products in a very short space of time,” Rob explains. “There were certainly challenges in getting all these products out to our existing database of customers, but the result was fantastic.”

As a multi-site fabricator, Listers opened up new product ranges to existing customers without having to invest in new factory space or equipment. One exception to this rule was the new Sheerline range of aluminium products from Garnalex, which Listers now manufactures at its site in Essex, as well as Stoke.

“We are manufacturing most of what Sheerline supplies, including the Classic and Prestige ranges,” Rob says. “And it came at the right time.

“There are a lot of changes taking place in the industry, especially when it comes to energy efficiency, and it’s important that we keep an eye on the compatibility of our products with the tightening of the Building Regulations.

“So, Sheerline can comfortably achieve the 1.4W/m²K U-values that are now required, and this was the main focus for us.

“But Sheerline is an all-round great product. For example, we started manufacturing the bi-fold doors, which come with clip-in beads – they are a massive time saver. Since then, we’ve offered the Prestige window range, the classic window range (which is which is a lot slimmer) and the lantern, which is just a great product.”

The Sheerline S1 lantern was designed from the ground up. If features as anti-tamper screws, enclosed anti-tamper glazing, security tape and a patent pending glass lock, alongside a unique high security ridge end.

Thanks to the patented Thermlock multi-chamber design, the Part L-compliant Sheerline windows and doors can achieve U-values as low as 1.3W/m²k with a double glazed unit, 0.9W/m²k with a triple, and can accommodate glazing depths of between 28mm and 44mm. It has also been designed to reduce its impact on the environment, sourcing aluminium from Wales, extruding in the UK, and recycling all aluminium waste.

Prestige bi-folds from Listers are available in a flush finish, and eight powder-coated matt colours, a high gloss white option, or three anodised colours. Colour is sold on the same lead time as Listers’ PVC-U ranges, so if a customer gets a mixed order on one job, then all products can be delivered to site together.

And features such as the clip-in bead remove the need for wedge gasketing and speed up installation, maximising profits in the process.

“These sorts of features are an easy sell for our customers,” Rob says. “Our customers are historically PVC-U customers, but they understand the market has changed. And by backing Sheerline we have a simplified, but bigger range to offer them.”

Rob says that while the team in Essex benefited from a broader product range offered by Listers in Stoke, skills and expertise also travelled the other way.

“What you get with Listers is a great digital marketing presence – introduced by Roy Frost – which is coupled with our historic service levels. Our customers know that when we say their delivery is going to be on a particular day, then it will arrive on that day. If there’s an issue with that, then you will be informed. And if you do have a problem, then we’ve got somebody on the phone that you can ring, and that problem will be resolved.

“It’s really strong element of what the old GJB has brought to the whole group.”