One of Cardiff’s most successful businessmen, who started his own multi-million pound company with just £250 in the bank, has one motto: “It’s better to make a bad decision, than no decision at all.” Does that mean Steve Borley has ever regretted a decision he’s made? “No,” he said. “No regrets, you’ve got to keep looking forward.” It sounds like another motto.
We’re sitting in the newly-opened community café at Llanrumney Hall – which Steve took on in 2015. But he never planned to become the saviour of the former crumbling Grade II listed building. Nor did he ever plan on becoming a director of Cardiff City Football Club or the club chairman. There was no plan: “My plan was to have no plan,” he said. It’s how he’s approached nearly everything in life.
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He’s only half-joking, although he does later admit that he always planned on owning his own business. But even Steve could never have dreamed of heading up a business- CMB Engineering – which would go on to turnover £85m every year and employ 150 people across five offices.
It’s not bad for a lad brought up in a council house in Llanrumney just a stone’s throwaway from the exact spot we’re sitting and who left school at 16 to start an engineering apprenticeship. It wasn’t that he wasn’t academically able that stopped him doing A-Levels, it was just that he wanted to work. It’s a common theme in Steve’s life – a passion and drive to work hard and get things done properly.
(Image: John Myers)
He’s a proper Cardiff boy – born in Grangetown and later moving to Thackeray Crescent in Llanrumney with his parents and three brothers. He pauses to point out that’s why the café is called Thackerays – after his home street. His grandmother lived just three doors down from Ninian Park. “Dad always used to take me to Ninian Park,” he said. “I’ve always had a massive affinity with the club.”
“I grew up round here,” he continued. “Every day was an adventure in the woods and fields. Mum would send us out at 9am and dad would come hunting for us in the evenings. We were a really poor working class family but it gave us an education in life. Everything you got you valued.”
The young Steve went to St Cadocs and later St Illtyds. Aged 11, he got his first job working at a greyhound kennels for 10 shillings. Three quarters of his wages went to his mum – “That was what you were expected to do in those days” – but the rest he kept. “Everything I’ve ever owned myself, I’ve bought myself,” he said.
The youngster had a love for engineering and loved building things. “My favourite toy was Meccanno,” he said. “I liked to make things that weren’t in the book. That’s been the story of my life, not doing things by the book.” He offers a rare smile. It’s not that Steve isn’t funny or kind, it’s just that he rarely feels compelled to smile. Getting him to smile for photographs is particularly hard going, he confides.
Aged 12, Steve’s parents used to leave him in charge of his siblings – by then he had a sister too – and as soon as they went out for an evening, he’d start building a steam engine out of an old cocoa tin, bits of wood and a candle. Anything that came to hand really, he laughed. Aged 16, he decided to ditch A-Levels and university for an apprenticeship in engineering. “I’d always been brought up never to waste a day in school or work,” he said. “I wanted to go to work to work.”
(Image: Steve Borley)
A conscientious worker and passionate engineer, Steve “breezed through” his city and guilds qualification at Llandaff Tech, coming away with a distinction and student of the year for four years running. A bridging course in mechanical engineering followed and then a three-year degree at Bath. It took him eight years, but eventually he got to where he needed to be. Still an apprentice, by this time he was running more projects than most of his senior colleagues.
In his early-30s, with just £250 in the bank he decided to quit his job and go it alone. He set up CMB Engineering – named after the initials of his wife Christine Margaret Borley – and never looked back. In the first five years, they went from zero to £5m turnover.
“My mother made me take out an endowment policy when I started my career,” he said. “It matured at about that time so I knew that whatever happened, I’d be able to pay the mortgage for three months. I thought if we turned over £100,000 then I’d be able to pay my mortgage. But that first year we turned over £600k, then £1.2m the year after, then £2m and then £4m. It just kept on growing and growing.” At one point Celtic Manor offered him a £7m contract during the construction of the flagship hotel.
“Everyone in the industry was saying they cant do that, that’s too big,” said Steve, smiling again. “I love being told something can’t be done. Because then I want to do it.” Steve took the project on, thinking he might not ever get another like it. But they did and CMB has just finished two £40m+ projects he said.
“When you walk out of Cardiff Central station, everything you see in front of you we’ve done,” he said proudly.
(Image: John Myers)
The company celebrated it’s 30 year anniversary in February. Today it’s the largest independently own building services company in Wales and features in the top 300 companies in Wales. Projects on their books have included the new BBC HQ at Cardiff’s Central Square, the makeover at St Fagans National Museum of History and the new International Convention Centre at Celtic Manor.” CMB provides the on-site mechanical and electrical services – “everything you can fit, effectively” – working in partnership with development and construction companies such as Rightacres.
The value of training up youngsters and apprentices is deeply rooted in Steve’s own experiences and his own workforce is made up of over 80% CMB trained operatives under the train and retain policy.
Now aged 64, he’s still working hard, perhaps harder than ever. He doesn’t really need to. “You’ve got to have a reason to get up in the morning,” he said. “If you don’t you don’t.” And yet it’s not that common to have co-founded a company from scratch, seen remarkable growth and still be group managing director over a quarter of a century later. “I find it difficult to walk away from things,” he admitted. “Retiring is not something I can think about. When I reached 40 I thought, what happens if I get hit by the proverbial bus? That made us set things up properly so that if I was no longer here, everyone’s mortgages would get paid.”
(Image: John Myers)
Steve has his fingers in a great number of pies right across the city – from Llanrumney Hall to Cardiff City FC. Like he said right at the start of the interview: “You dare to dream, but the plan has always been no plan.” Finding his way onto the Cardiff City board was a dream he’d barely have dreamt as a kid while watching the matches from the terraces at Ninian Park. So how did that come about?
Heading to Southampton for work one day, he heard on the radio that Cardiff were playing Southampton in the league cup. “I rang my wife to see if there was any opportunity for us to sponsor the match ball,” Steve recalled. There was and he got his company’s name onto the ball and the shirts that day and was allowed to bring 23 people along to watch his team, who were thumped 5-0 as it happened.
But it wasn’t the result that stuck with Steve that day – it was the experience in the box that left him bitterly disappointed. “We stayed out to clap the team off and when we got back into the function room after the match, there was just lettuce leaves left from the buffet,” he said. And Steve had nominated the goalkeeper as man of the match, but the accolade was handed to someone else.
“The next day they called me and asked me about the experience and I just laughed,” he continued. “I told them I’d be amazed if anyone would come back and sponsor the team after that.”
(Image: Ben Evans/Huw Evans Agency)
To cut a long story short, Steve was invited to Ninian Park and he suddenly discovered how little there was to entice corporate sponsorship. There was no club history on display, there was no opportunity to take a tour of the changing rooms to see the player’s shirts laid out before matches and the changing rooms were in such a poor state, he’d “never seen anything like it”.
He offered to do the changing rooms up: “We did them up for nothing and did them in a way to be proud of,” he said. “The trouble is, once I’m through the door, I can’t get out.” CMB Engineering became the shirt sponsor for the away kit.
At around that time, there were some new faces at Cardiff City with the likes of Paul Guy and Bob Philips investing their own money into the club. Steve wanted in too. “Being naïve you think you can make a difference,” he said. Together with his friends and family members, he put in £133,000 for a place at the table although he wouldn’t be on the board until 1996.
Over the past 40 years, he’s played a leading role in steering his beloved City through some of their worst moments – there were times when he paid players wages out of his own pocket and helped keep the club alive before the major Malaysian investment came in to secure the future. There were some incredible highs along the way but some terrible lows too.
When Steve arrived on the board, Cardiff City were almost at the bottom of the lowest division in the football league. He said: “I persuaded myself and some colleagues to put in some money to bring Frank…
