Stephen Cooke blames his current employment status on boredom. He was, he says, enjoying early retirement in the United States "drinking watered-down beer, eating chicken wings and learning to play golf". But something was not right - a lifetime in haulage had taken its toll. "Basically, I missed it. It's what I'd always done and maybe 50 years old was just too young to retire: I felt there was something I still wanted - and was still able - to do," he explains.
For those that don't know
Cooke's CV, it's worth a quick catch-up. Following a variety of transport roles for the likes of Norfolk Line and Ferrymasters he jointly founded Plane Trucking, which was later sold. He then bought into Yorkshire firm Gagewell in 1985 and turned it from being a supermarket consolidator into a distributor of high-value commodities such as tobacco and alcohol. In 2000 Cooke sold it to local rival Clipper Group and headed for the beach.
However, when the boredom became too much he looked for a way back into the industry. Enter Leeds haulier Macfarlane Transport. Cooke says he was in discussions in January 2006 to buy the business as a going concern, but it quickly became apparent that this was not possible. He was then approached by Macfarlane's administrator KPMG to see if some sort of deal could still be reached.
Enter Macfarlane Transport Holdings - a firm run by Cooke and his son Robert - in February 2006. Exit Cooke's previously quiet life.
It's fair to say that the decision to buy the "unencumbered assets and goodwill" of Macfarlane Transport is one that has divided opinion. On the one hand, the purchase saved the business and around 300 jobs. However, there was considerable anger among subcontractors at the seeming sudden rebirth of the company minus its liabilities, even if in reality it was an entirely new company.
To his credit, Cooke does not duck the issue. He says he understands the level of ill-feeling: "I think that's understandable because every time a company goes into administration people are inevitably hurt.
"It's sad, but it wasn't caused by us, or anything we could avoid or resolve.
"We were given the opportunity to buy the business - as were others - and we invested a substantial amount of our own money. We held the business together and saved 300 jobs.
"I don't see myself on a white charger, but I think we had to be seen as people who had come in and put their money on the line."
Yet the still cynical voices are difficult to quiet. What seems to especially irk those owed money by Macfarlane Transport is the retention of the previous management team - Robert Fox, Andrew Forrest and Paul Kennedy. Although no longer directors, they are still involved in the company.
Again, Cooke doesn't avoid the question. "I think we have to take people as we find them. We wanted to understand the business we'd just bought and get to know the people within it - and that's exactly what we did," he says.
"I can understand how people who were hurt perhaps would think that the management team shouldn't have been retained.
"From my working knowledge of the guys they may have made some wrong decisions and maybe the responsibility for what happened is theirs, but they were just three guys who did their very best and failed - it's as simple as that."
He also points out that the majority of the former firm's subcontractors are now working for the new company.
However, Cooke says that even truck manufacturers seemed to struggle with the idea that Macfarlane Transport Holdings was a new company. The firm has just entered the last phase of a massive refleeting exercise that saw 125 trucks - those on contract to the old company - leave and 140 new Mercs and MANs brought in. Cooke says the decision to refleet was not difficult: "They weren't right to keep - they were expensive, they were old, they were damaged and they had analogue tachos.
"We'd have been happy to enter into new agreements for any or all of those, but the deals weren't available to us. It came down to this - why pay more for old vehicles that weren't right for us when we could source new on better deals?
"Some of the finance companies couldn't understand what had happened others took an uncommercial view. Some even insisted on arrears. Why would we pay those? There was arrogance at certain marques and their finance companies."
Ten months later, Cooke says the company is going very well - it has retained 95% of the original business and new contracts have also been acquired. "We're very much on track," he says. "Overall, we're very pleased we took nothing for granted, it's a difficult industry. In fact, I think it's tougher than it's ever been and it's always been a tough place to work. I think customers have much greater expectations than ever before and want to pay less for them."
The most recent acquisition is the assets of another failed Leeds haulier, KG Sewell, which went into administration on 20 September. The operation has already been centralised at Macfarlane's Crossgates site and in time it will be rebranded as Macfarlane's automotive division.
Given the tough trading conditions that contributed to the collapse of both Macfarlane and Sewell you'd be forgiven for wondering why Cooke came back when he did. But he stresses that customers will soon have to realise the value of their service: "The days of forcing carriers to do more for less have to come to an end. If they want a sustainable, professional transport operation then there has to be a realisation that there's a price to pay for that.
"There has got to come a point where a common-sense approach is taken. I think we're getting better at that and that's one of the reasons I came back into [the industry]. If it hasn't bottomed out yet then I think we're quite close to it - and that means we're also close to coming out of the slump.
"If I didn't believe that then I wouldn't be here now - I'm an optimist."
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