Family business: The inheritance that keeps on giving

Entrepreneurial traits can be instilled in a child who grows up with parents that run a business. This is something that Business Partners Limited (BUSINESS/PARTNERS) has noticed in their experience of providing business finance to many* owners of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) stemming from entrepreneurial families.

An example of this that stands out to Darrel Rose, Area Manager at BUSINESS/PARTNERS, is the story of client Farida Rahman, who grew up working in her family’s upholstery company and always dreamt of starting her own business. “Farida put this dream into action in 1996, when she opened up a tiny home-based business selling cool drink in novelty teddy bear shaped bottles to corner stores. Today, her and her husband, Hafeez Rahman, own a multi-million-rand-a-month plastic moulding business, ATL Blow Moulders.”

Recalling the start of their business, Farida explains that she first bought bottles from local plastics manufacturers and filled them up at home, but following her and Hafeez’s attendance at a plastics show, they decided to buy their own blow-moulding machine to make the bottles themselves.

“In order to remain a home-based business so that I could take care of my children, and also to bridge my lack of technical knowledge, I made a deal with a local plastics factory to operate our machine at their factory. However, before the factory relocated, I learned all that I could about blow moulding from the technicians, so that I could operate the machine myself.”

With her instilled entrepreneurial drive, Farida was intent on expanding her business into beverages and started bottling flavoured milk drinks. However, the bottle manufacturing side of her business flourished and ended up becoming her key focus. “The business’ fate was ultimately sealed as a plastics-focused manufacturer when a national fruit juice company, which is also a family business, reached out to us when their usual supplier refused to work over Christmas.”

While the rest of the economy was struggling in the wake of the 2008 financial crash, the relationship between the two businesses blossomed and ATL Blow Moulders went from strength to strength. “In order to expand further, we bought machines for producing 5-litre bottles and acquired the capability of producing bottles in clear PET plastic,” says Farida.

By 2009 the business had grown so large that it made sense for Hafeez to leave his corporate job and join Farida on a full-time basis. However, like any fast-growing business, ATL Blow Moulders was not immune to challenges and one particular crisis prompted them to approach BUSINESS/PARTNERS for business finance.

“After buying a new machine to produce 25-litre cans, the Rahmans discovered that local manufacturers of the caps for the cans refused to supply them because they saw ATL Blow Moulders as competition. This forced them to order a new mould from China so that they could produce the caps themselves. To buy this mould, however, additional finance was required,” says Rose

“The business loan also allowed them to buy two new machines to produce 50-litre cans, and to complete the purchase of their plot in Eikenhof,” he adds.

Today, ATL Blow Moulders produces at least 5000 bottles a day with a factory staff of over 70 workers, says Rose. “With no end in sight to their growth, Farida and Hafeez are confident that their business has what it takes to become a significant player in the industry,” he concludes.