Brendan Mee, CEO of EY Entrepreneur of the Year finalist MTM Engineering, on how the Meath cabling business is scaling throughout Europe to target €100m in revenues and grow to 1,000 employees this year.
This year 24 Irish finalists have been named for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards which take place in November. Currently in its 27th year in Ireland, the programme works to recognise, promote, and build a supportive community around Ireland’s high-growth entrepreneurs and is considered one of the strongest programmes globally.
Since its inception, the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Ireland community has grown to a tight-knit network of more than 600 alumni who harness each other’s wealth of experience, with three quarters (75%) conducting business with one another.
“The one thing we have been able to do well over the last 11 or 12 years is to scale. We’ve gone from eight people to hopefully more than 1,000 by the end of the year”
Together, the EOY alumni community generates revenues of €25bn, and employs more than 250,000 people across the island of Ireland.
In the past 10 months the finalists have engaged in a strategic growth programme which includes a week-long CEO Retreat in South Africa.
The cable guy
Among the finalists this year is MTM Engineering, a Monaghan-born but Slane, Co Meath-based specialist cable installation business founded by Martin Mee in 1997.
MTM Engineering is a specialist eectrical turnkey cable installation and termination company specialising in the pre-construction design, containment design and installation and cable installation of high voltage, medium voltage and low voltage cables and termination an testing of medium voltage and low voltage systems.
MTM utilise their inhouse processes and state of the art tailor made equipment to manage and deliver their projects across Europe to the highest safety and quality standards.
The company has completed large scale industrial and renewable projects in Ireland, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Austria and UK.
In 2021 it had total sales in excess of €40m. In 2022, the business secured €30m in investment from Waterland Private Equity in a move that has supercharged its European growth strategy.
Through a combination of key acquisitions and organic growth by the end of 2024 the business will be approaching €100m in revenues and will have more than doubled its headcount from 400 people two years ago to around 870 today.
This a far shout from situation that greeted Martin’s son Brendan in 2013 when he returned to Ireland for what was intended to be a brief hiatus before returning to Australia with his wife.
The business had originally grown to around 60 staff but when the global financial crisis struck in 2008, the seismic shift in economic fortunes that hit Ireland presented major local challenges and by 2013 there were only a handful of staff remaining.
In a classic sliding doors moment Brendan, who had a residency visa for Australia, decided to stay and turn the company around. It was an inspired decision.
He decided that instead of focusing solely on the local market he would cast his net wider. A lucky break came in the form of a contract on the European mainland which was to drive MTM in a whole new technological and innovative direction beyond power cabling to data communications too. Its complex systems are deployed across industrial, power generation, aerospace, renewables, life sciences, healthcare and all manner of critical infrastructure.
“Our business was historically in the area of cable termination but now it’s also about containment installation. We focus on mission critical projects that involve power and cable infrastructure for big projects that include pharmaceutical plants and data centres. There can be no downtime.”
This is a far cry from MTM’s humble origins in 1997. “When Martin established the business it was just dad in the van and some of our neighbours were his first employees. He grew it from there and built it into a nationwide business that took on some heavy projects. But when the recession hit things had tightened up and navigating through the recession was no small feat and he had come out the other side.
“We came home for Christmas in 2012 with the intention of going back to Australia. But I spoke with my dad and it was clear there was plenty going on so we decided to stay and make a run of it here.”
Mee’s instincts were to look to Europe and by the summer of 2013 he had landed a major contract in Germany followed by another contract in Belgium.
He puts the company’s turnaround down to new energy fresh thinking. “We rejuvenated the business and took a fresh look at Europe and we were able to identify new opportunities in Europe.”
When Mee took on the reins of MTM in 2013, the business was down to eight people. But the combination of opportunities and available manpower meant the business was able to hire as it grew. “It’s was a very different jobs market back then compared with now, and we were able to get any amount of people that we needed. We had no fear about taking projects on.
“Once we had dipped our toes in the water we realised we could do this.”
The business today is active in countries from Norway to Switzerland, the continent of Africa and Australia.
“The more of these installations we did we learned from them and adapted.”
MTM also developed its technological capability to handle more complex power and data cabling work. “The ambition inside the business is to innovate, to grow and to develop and solve problems for our customers across a range of industries. What we are doing now is literally increasing the scale and size of the business we have. The reason we can do this is because of the technology, the systems and how we develop and build it.”
Mee says he is unphased by the surge in growth of the business from eight in 2013 to close to 900 people 11 years later. “It’s all about the people that you have around you and putting the right processes in place. It’s about how you develop new people, making sure they understand what’s expected of them.
“It’s about the foundation of the company that we have. Our culture is fantastic and we develop our people. Our attrition rate in the business would be among the lowest in our industry and it’s all about how you look after your people.
“We keep ourselves grounded and we keep driving on. That’s who we are, really.”
Brendan was only six years old when MTM was founded by his parents. In 2022, the decision to bring in private equity was based on the recognition that the business needed to move to a different phase.
“Getting to €40m in revenues was no small feat. I wanted to keep pushing on and growing the business by doing acquisitions as well as growing organically.
“But I also realised that growing organically was natural given the structures that we had but when it came to acquisitive growth it was different and it required different synergies and a macro outlook. Bringing Waterland as investors in was the right fit for us culturally.”
Acquisitions to date include Leo Larkin Electrical, ATTS, CET Connect and more recently TA Ronan. In September the business announced a new headquarters as well as 200 new jobs.
“90% of our revenues today are outside the island of Ireland, we’re very much an international business. We have doubled the size of our headquarters in Slane and we currently have vacancies for 50 local jobs as well as our offices in Clonmel and Strabane.
“Scaling is quite hard work and you have to make sure that your culture is right, but you have to have a bit of fun along the way too. The one thing we have been able to do well over the last 11 or 12 years is to scale. We’ve gone from eight people to hopefully more than 1,000 by the end of the year.
“Scaling is different for every business. There are different nuances. We keep everything in-house. The key is to put the right structures in place to help you manage that growth and be ready to take on more business. We are currently doing a gap analysis to make sure we can put the structures in place for the next phase of the business. We’re constantly working on it.”
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