Abbey Logistics CEO Steve Granite moves to executive chairman role

Steve Granite has stepped down from his role as chief executive of Abbey Logistics Group to become executive chairman.

In his new role Granite will split his time between the bulk food tanker firm Abbey Logistics and another non-logistics investment.

David Patton, who became Abbey Logistics MD last year, after joining the company as operations director in 2019, will lead the company.

Granite joined the business as a 15-year-old apprentice in 1995 and held various positions including finance director, before being named successor to majority shareholder Stephen Lucy, in 2009 as MD.

Abbey Logistics Group employs 550 people and operates 600 liquid and powder tankers. It also operates a specialist warehouse on the Wirral which has bulk bag handling facilities and 200,000sq ft of space.

Under Granite’s leadership the company saw revenues grow from £18m in 2009 to close to £70m to its latest year ending in June 2022. It also saw Granite lead a management buy-out from the Lucy family, backed by NorthEdge Capital in 2016.

Announcing the move the company said that Granite has, since 2020, reduced his time in Abbey to enable him to focus time on “another investment he holds outside of the logistics sector”, adding that this had led to the appointment of the existing group MD David Patten as Granite’s successor.

As part of the changes, existing non-executive chairman Julian Maturi will move to a non-executive director role and Josette Saville will become a statutory director in her existing role as sales director.

Granite said: “Now that we have a robust, experienced and well-balanced management team in place, I’m able to move into this new role as executive chairman."