The value of the Door-Stop purchase by Masonite is estimated to be around £30m. That is certainly a lot of money. And that got me thinking, if I was Nick and Gary Dutton, what would I do with £30m? Well I don’t know what they plan to do next, but there are a few things I would do with such a sum of cash.

Retire

Might sound an odd suggestion that. But hear me out on this one. The industry has gone under massive change and evolution over the last few years, and although the amount of choice and variability to the customer is surely a good thing, the amount of extra stress and hard work that this has brought is bringing some people to question whether it is worth it. Sometimes I can include myself in that group. So if I have been given a large amount of money, one option open to me could be to retire, enjoy the fruits of my labour and leave a decent inheritance for my kids.

However this is probably last on the list on things I could do with £30m…

Create Something New

£30m would allow me to create a pretty spectacular new company from scratch. Whilst most new companies struggle in their first few years, I would have the funding to do as I saw fit. Marketing, space, equipment, supplies and all other ingredients needed to start a new business with ease. The key would be finding the next niche to blow up into a mass market.

My initial thoughts would be something like a new timber alternative product, but this market is already nearing a more advanced stage so it would be more difficult to enter that sector at this late stage. Aluminium and timber markets seem to be going quite well, there might be room to create something new in those sectors, although they are becoming pretty crowded already.

I could always stick to doors. If I’d made so much money in the doors business before, I would have enough knowledge and expertise to make a go at it again. Doors have become an art form in recent years and have captured the imagination of the general public quite strongly. I might still have the appetite to create a brand new door product to try and turn the industry on it’s head again.

Invest in People

I have always thought that the industry has had it’s fair share of personalities that have made a lot of money out of fenestration, but not always given anything back. With £30m, I think I could invest some of that cash to try and create something to attract new youth and energy to the industry.

I still believe we are not doing enough to make the industry look attractive enough to young people. We need an army of young men and women to come into the industry to replace the ageing population within our industry. I would want to set something up which demonstrated to young people coming out of college and university that a career in fenestration can be rewarding, well paid, exciting and can lead to some fantastic opportunities to own their own companies in the future. If we don’t do that as an industry we stand to become anaemic in the future.

Something completely different!

That amount of cash would allow me to enter almost any new industry I could wish for. We all have other passions away from fenestration, and I think we have all had ideas about what we might do if we didn’t work in windows and doors. £30m might allow me to start a new company in a completely different industry.

These are just a few options open to someone with such a large sum of money. But what would you do? Would you stay in the fenestration industry? Would you try and create another revolutionary company or would you take a completely different route altogether? All comments welcome in the section below.