Our History
Goodfish was founded by Greg McDonald in 2010. After a career in finance (hedge fund IFM Trading) to industry (steel casting at William Cook plc), back to finance (M&A advisory at investment banks, ING Barings and Deutsche Bank) and back again to industry (IMI plc), Greg branched out on his own to set up Goodfish Ltd, supported by a former boss and supportive friends. The plan was to execute a buy-and-build strategy in the UK’s highly-fragmented plastic injection-moulding sector.
Goodfish started with the acquisition of a small injection-moulding and tool-making business in Cannock. The loss-making business needed turning around and leadership, which Greg and his team (former colleagues from IMI’s Artform International) provided. Despite the difficult circumstances as the world emerged from the financial crisis, the Cannock business became a platform for further acquisitions.
In January 2015, Goodfish doubled its size with the acquisition of Worcester-based Powell & Harber, a well-respected injection-moulding and tool-making business whose founder-owners were looking to retire. The acquisition was supported by investment from Finance Birmingham, who took an equity stake in Goodfish whilst providing additional funding to support the growing working capital needs of the expanding Group.
In April 2017, Goodfish acquired from Marmon Group, the injection-moulding, vacuum-forming and sub-assembly activities of DCI-Artform International, a large business in Loughborough which Greg McDonald had managed and transformed, before IMI sold Artform to Marmon Group.
This turnaround was achieved by implementing Lean Manufacturing in 2007-08. The acquisition, which further extended Goodfish’s range of capabilities into vacuum-forming and assembly, required significant investment in new injection-moulding machines to replace some of the more tired equipment acquired from Marmon Group.
Unfortunately, in early 2020, Marmon Group decided to close DCI-Artform, leaving our Loughborough business without its major customer. This left Goodfish with no choice but to close ‘Goodfish East Midlands’ and exit the site, just as the UK was edging towards its first lockdown in March 2020. A significant operation ensued, in moving the equipment to our sites in Cannock, Worcester and the newly-acquired site in North Wales.
The acquisition of the injection-moulding, extrusion and tool-making activities of Honeywell at its St Asaph site, was completed in January 2020, again just as Covid was beginning to make itself known across the world. This acquisition opened the doors for Goodfish to the world of plastic extrusion. Further investment at the St Asaph site (now ‘Goodfish North West’) has made the business an important base for the Goodfish Group in the North West of the UK.
In 2024, Goodfish announced the acquisition of Schneider Electric’s extrusion business in Flint. This not only doubled the extrusion capacity of the Group, but also gave Goodfish a pathway to selling extruded and moulded cable management products direct to wholesale and professional customers, through newly established Cutterwell & Co.
