Dealernomics@70 with Tom Black, MD Cyril Johnston & Co Ltd, Belfast

Founded 70 years ago when Cyril Johnston met a young enterprising engineer, Douglas Hayter, Cyril Johnston & Co Ltd has had a seamless relationship with Hayter mowers (now part of Toro) to the present day. The running of the family company then passed to Cyril's son, Dolway and David who have grown the business to encompass retail, hire, distribution and manufacturing.

A year ago, Tom Black, who trained at accountants Price Waterhouse (now PCW) was appointed as Managing Director. As a family outsider, he tells Chris Biddle how he helped refocus the company on its core business of grass machinery after several years of diversification.

He also tells how an outside consultancy was hired to help strengthen the company culture which was very successfully tested during the Covid trading restrictions.

Tom also says he hopes the company will benefit from the recent decision to provide each adult resident in Northern Ireland with a £100 shopping voucher to spent in bricks and mortar businesses over the next couple of months