Penny Petroleum, founded and run by David Penny, has been around for 30 years this July. But what motivates the man behind the brand which has grown from a single site petrol station in Northumberland to a business that spans several sectors and turns over almost £400 million.
On the cusp of owning 100 forecourts across the North of England, Scotland and Wales, David Penny is a titan in the petrol retailing world. Most in the industry will recognise or know him, with his big smile and signature flat cap, but he has been reluctant to reveal too much about the man behind the brand, preferring his business’s success to do the talking.
Now, aged 64, he has no plans to step back from the family firm he founded in 1994, although he says he has been “future proofing” it by acquiring a series of adjacent enterprises, including hotels, a farm shop, carwash centres, and, in the pipeline, a three-outlet bakery.
He has also been taking steps adding to his management to take the company forward into the 2030s, with his appointment this September of Anthony Jackson, a friend of seven years and former headmaster of Barnard Castle School.
Anthony, or Tony as he prefers, will become chief commercial officer to give an “outsider’s vision, with no preconceived ideas”, says David. He has a remit to support shaping the “Penny on the Move of the future”, including seeking new strategic opportunities. It is an appointment that has added verve and excitement among the team.
David says he also has a management structure in place that allows everything to tick along in his absence. His other senior colleagues, chief operating officer Vicky Hennessy and group general manager Keith Jewers have been at his side for more than 10 years, and Paul Frater Penny’s account manager for more than 25 years.
David, who cut his industry teeth as a graduate trainee with BP, has two children and one of them, 25-year-old daughter Nuala, takes up a recruitment role at the company this summer after a stint as a teaching assistant. His son, Tom, a professional rugby player, and born three months after David bought his first forecourt at Powburn, near Alnwick, has so far shown no inclination to join his sister. Wife Louise, who has played a major role over the years in her support for David also used to manage the payroll.
David himself took some time before deciding petrol retailing would be his career of choice. After graduating with a business studies degree from Liverpool Polytechnic, he joined BP and worked in various roles in the company’s petrol station arm, from looking after dealers to coming up with a national carwash strategy.
This took him to work for the oil giant in London where he decided that the corporate world and city life were not for him. “I love living in the North-East and the people,” says David, who grew up in Bristol, before his father – a teacher – and mother, moved to Cumbria with him and his two siblings.
After leaving BP, he took a break to travel for a couple of years, before taking a job with the Park Road Group, a former customer of his in the North-East of England. But after a couple of years he left to travel again, and at one point thought he might become a mountain guide in Canada.
“I love the country and being active,” explained David, who also played rugby in his time and remains a keen sportsman. “I might not be able to play rugby anymore and a double knee operation 18 months ago has slowed me down a bit,” he says. “But I still play golf and I went on a ski trip recently.”
While travelling, David proposed to Louise and when she became pregnant with Tom, the couple returned to the UK, with David having no prospect of work. That was when he came across Hedgeley Services in Powburn, which had a house attached where the family lived, and has served as Penny Petroleum’s head office, as well as remaining an important site for the business.
After 30 years as a successful businessman, he says his enjoyment comes from “turning something from nothing into a gem”.
He is known for being modest among his contemporaries and is just as likely to show people a rundown site he has plans to develop as one operating at the top of its game – it is the potential to be creative and to put his stamp onto a site that excites him and what he wants to talk about.
He says each of his forecourts “has a story to tell”. Two within 20 minutes of each other near Durham were burnt-out derelict premises, for instance. He likes to introduce a Post Office, valeting, and food to go at his forecourts.
His enthusiasm to improve struggling or defunct businesses is infectious. Store managers approach him with ideas to develop their sites, making the case for investment to introduce carwashes or parcel lockers. He knows many of his forecourt employees by name and says he would like to be thought of as approachable and easy to talk to. But nothing misses his eye for detail when on site, from removing debris on the forecourt that could puncture customers’ tyres, or quizzing staff on why a door is missing from a chiller.
He has fun with the brand too. The new Penny on the Move fascia, which will be rolled out across his entire forecourt estate by the end of this year, features a rugby ball in the graphics, a nod to his own love of the sport and his son’s success on the field – he has played for Harlequins and Newcastle. Toilets, and some stores, feature artwork of local sites and celebrities. And toilet doors are marked with ‘Spend A Penny’ signage.
It is part of an effort to give each store its own personality rather than seem part of a corporate chain, although the rebranding will give all his sites a common identity. “I’m not at all corporate, I am fiercely independent,” says David. “I’m trying to create a situation where our rebranding to Penny on the Move will bring all of the stores together, and that should be complete by the end of the year.”
Asked whether he might consider inviting outside investors or private equity providers to help fund future expansion, he says it is not the way he works. “I’m not wired that way,” he says, then continues: “We have good old-fashioned debt, and not that much of it,.”
Earlier this year, David moved 52 forecourts to Costcutter, increasing the number to 80, in a five-year deal with Bestway. The remainder of his forecourt shops are Spar, supplied by CJ Lang in Scotland.
Many of the business owners he works with regard him as a friend. He likes to put his weight behind local suppliers too, stocking food to go items from neighbourhood bakers. So far, he has not installed a single Greggs franchise, despite operating in the brand’s heartland, and has just one Subway outlet, although he admits this might have to change as he expands.
David insists that he still gets to enjoy downtime. He says he is very good at “compartmentalising” his personal time, although his wife might disagree. “Work is always on his mind,” says Louise. He enjoys gardening, has kept hens in the past, and likes walking his cocker spaniel and bernese mountain dog, and his passion for travel remains.
Above all, he sees himself as a local champion, providing more than 1,000 direct jobs and supporting many others in the supply chain. Although he is a former winner of Forecourt Trader’s Special Recognition Award, he says he is not much interested in personal accolades, preferring instead that his team share the limelight of any awards the business wins.
After three decades building the region’s pre-eminent forecourt chain, the Bristolian’s heart remains very much with his adopted North-East and its people.
