The Island’s most extensive dry cleaning business is up for sale for $2.5 million.

It has a $2 million-a-year turnover with net income of around $450,000, according to Bermudian owner Steve Thomson.

With an estimated 90 to 95 per cent share of the Island’s dry cleaning market, the profit margin hovers between 15 and 25 per cent, said Mr Thomson.

He runs Hamilton-based Just Shirts Launderers & Drycleaners and Coral Cleaners, and Paget Drycleaners in Paget.

Mr Thomson is looking at new opportunities and feels the time is right to put his dry-cleaning business on the market.

“I’m 55 and I’ve done this for 30 years. It is doing very well. It has provided a fantastic opportunity for me. It is a high-margin business,” he said.

“It is time for me to move on. I get excitement from opening new ventures and start-ups. I get a buzz from new ventures.”

As a businessman and entrepreneur, he is no stranger to diversification. He set up Mailboxes Unlimited, in Par-la-Ville Road, in 1990, and more recently was involved in the purchase and development of the Heron’s Nest property at Riddell’s Bay.

Mr Thomson is now involved in a house-building project in Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada.

“I have other irons in the fire,” he said, explaining that he didn’t have to sell his dry-cleaning business right now.

However, he feels there may be potential buyers interested in owning and running a more physical-type business.

“There are people who don’t want to be lawyers or executives and want to run a ‘manual’ business. This is the sort of thing that should appeal to them.”

Mr Thomson has spoken to his employees about his plans to seek a buyer. There are 16 staff working across the three dry-cleaning outlets.

For Mr Thomson it will mean stepping away from the career sector he entered into after studying hotel management at Cornell University, New York, in the early 1980s.

From there he joined Four Seasons Hotels, working in the room laundry and dry cleaning departments.

After working at Four Seasons hotels in Toronto, San Francisco and Newport Beach, California, he returned to Bermuda in the mid-1980s and spent a spell in the laundry and housekeeping at Elbow Beach Resort.

But he soon branched out with his own shirt service business after noticing a gap in the market.

“None of the dry-cleaners at the time did a shirt service. I thought there must be a market for it.”

In 1988 he set up Just Shirts, which is now based in Bermudiana Road. It was originally located in Par-la-Ville Road, and it soon attracted a healthy number of customers, particularly executives and business-sector employees working in the immediate neighbourhood.

“We were open from 7am to 7pm, which made it convenient for executives to come in early before going to work, or drop by after work.”

The next step was linking up with a few of the dry-cleaners to widen the availability of the shirt service.

In 1997, when Paget Cleaners and Hamilton ValCleaners were put up for sale, Mr Thomson took the opportunity to expand. It was the beginning of a process of consolidation. Further purchases of rival dry-cleaning businesses were made during the next decade.

The ebb-and-flow of the Island’s economic fortunes have been reflected in the expansion and contraction of the dry-cleaning business.

“There has been a decline in customers since the loss of many expats [in the late 2000s], but we managed to remain profitable and have reduced the number of dry-cleaners,” he said.

The business has three dry-cleaning shops, together with the Just Shirts’ pick-up and delivery service.

When asked what has made the business successful, Mr Thomson pinpoints two key reasons. The first is the quality of staff.

“Many of them have been in the dry-cleaning business for many years,” he said. “We have had a very low turnover of staff in recent years and we have so many good people who take great care.”

He mentioned an anecdote about a mistake in the early years of Just Shirts when a bespoke shirt belonging to Edgar Wilkinson, a former chairman of the Bermuda Monetary Authority, was ruined.

Mr Thomson got in touch with the overseas tailor who had made the shirt and ordered a replacement. He said that, as a result, Mr Wilkinson remained a good customer.

“My takeaway from that was; even if it costs — always take care of your customer.”

Mr Thomson, who sits of the board of this newspaper’s parent company Bermuda Press (Holdings) Ltd, is proud of the Just Shirts business he created, the expanded dry-cleaning business he runs, and the successful sale of the Heron’s Nest properties he was involved in.

He intends to continue running Mailboxes Unlimited, in Par-la-Ville Road, as he pursues other business opportunities.

Potential buyers of the dry-cleaning business can contact Barry Capuano at CapCar Enterprises by calling 295-0754.