Triumph at ABP Night of Knights 2025

Morelli Group win Paint Distributor of the Year 2025, with Ruth Moring-Beale taking home the Lifetime Achievement Award.

The annual ABP Night of Knights awards ceremony took place Thursday 20th November at Manchester Central. Morelli Group were honoured to defend their title as Paint Distributor of the Year for the third time in four years, and the seventh time since 2008. Despite not taking home the award, Eyebox were finalists in the Training Provider of the Year category earning themselves a theoretical bronze medal.

Morelli Group have been serving the automotive industry since 1957 when the company was founded by Challoner 'Slim' Moring. From day one, the aim was to offer daily deliveries, a huge improvement on the weekly service offered by competitors at the time. This high efficiency of distribution has been the building blocks of the company and we are thrilled to see that our customers remain satisfied with our work.

We were even prouder to see our Director of Strategy & Growth, Ruth Moring-Beale, given the Lifetime Achievement Award on the night, following in the footsteps of some industry greats. Ruth is often asked about her experience as one of only a handful of women in the refinish industry in the '80s and ‘90s, when every room was predominantly male. 

“It was never a problem for me, only other people! I believed that as long as I knew my stuff and proved I could do my job, then people would soon forget that I was a woman and just accept that I could do the job. If I can walk into a room full of men and for it not to be noticed that I am the only woman as I am there to do my job, then I have done my bit for every woman who follows me.”  

Ruth started at Morelli in 1984, working alongside her siblings after the unfortunate death of their father, Slim. Ruth's first role was as a salesperson for valeting products out of the head office which was in Southgate, North London at the time. She recalls her formal training: visiting customers for 3 days, receiving a marked up A-Z of London, and being handed a set of car keys and product brochures! 

In 1986, Morelli purchased Coachbuilder's Supplies in High Wycombe and Ruth was assigned as the Branch Manager, her first opportunity to run a team, getting back to selling the core refinishing products. In 1990, Ruth was offered the opportunity to oversee the London branches of Ilford, Hackney, and Camden Town, as Area Director. At the time, there were still a lot of bodyshops operating in central London and Morelli had 5 branches covering the area. The rising cost of doing business in central London has since forced a lot of these bodyshops to the outskirts, or out of business, and this region is now covered by just one branch - a sign of the times!

In the 1990’s Ruth was promoted to  Sales Director as Morelli expanded into South London with the acquisition of branches in Clapham and Bromley. At the end of 2000, Morelli had the opportunity to acquire Bancrofts, a Midlands and Northern based distribution group. The acquisition proved a turning point for Morelli, taking them from a regional southern-based distributor with 10 branches, to a national group with 23 branches overnight. The process of the acquisition pushed all of Morelli’s resources to the limit, with most of the Management Team working long hours to ensure a smooth transition, finally closing on the sale at 4am on 11th December 2000! 

Over the following years, the business grew from strength to strength, changing shape with branches closing and amalgamating. The further acquisitions of two Sprayshop Supplier branches in the north, as well as John Harris Car Paints in the south, saw Ruth spending a lot of time travelling the length of the country. 

In 2010, the Peugeot & Citroen group, PSA, signed an agreement with Morelli Group for the supply of refinish materials to their network bodyshops. During negotiations, Ruth’s language skills came into play as she was able to visit the PSA headquarters in Paris and deliver the presentation in French! Currently in its 15th year, this agreement has grown over the years, now covering the whole of the Stellantis Group. Similar agreements with VAG Group and other OEMs have followed, giving Morelli a specialist niche in this sector of the market.

In 2022, Ruth changed her title to Director of Growth & Strategy, allowing Mark Moring to take over as Sales Director. This allowed Ruth to concentrate on different projects, including finding Morelli Group a base in Northern Ireland. The acquisition of Coachfinish in Belfast, a business owned by the Kidd family with similar business ethics as Morelli, has proved a roaring success. At the same time, the expansion of the our training centre at Eyebox has been one of Ruth’s passion projects, with Eyebox winning the ABP Training Award at Night of Knights in 2024, a very proud moment for the team.

It is incredibly difficult to distil a 41-year career in our industry into a few hundred words, but Ruth sums it up by saying:

“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all the ups and downs, twists and turns that this long career has seen. The most important part of having a job you love for this long is not to lose the passion, and I have always been passionate about this industry and what we can do within it. Having a family legacy to continue from both my parents and my brothers has driven me to make sure that everything we do has integrity and honesty - without that, we have nothing. As a family, we live Morelli, and there has been a lot of talk in recent years about work-life balance. I believe that the best way of describing my life is that I have work-life integration - one doesn’t work without the other! My colleagues and customers are my friends and my social circle as well as my work circle, and that’s what I love and why I don’t plan to retire any time soon! You are stuck with me for a while longer!”