Tracerco to expand by 10% a year

Nov 6 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal

A GLOBAL industrial technology company is aiming to grow at a rate of more than 10% a year as it opens two new overseas offices on the back of booming overseas demand for its services.

Billingham-based Tracerco, which has an annual turnover of £50m and employs 130 people in the UK, is opening its second Middle East office plus a second Chinese base by the turn of the year. It also operates in the US, Australia, Europe, South America and Africa and has 250 staff worldwide.

The company, started as an ICI offshoot 50 years ago, was bought by Johnson Matthey in 2002 and has grown almost 10-fold in the last decade.

As a developer of the technology that locates problems in equipment used by the oil and gas industry, Tracerco plans to fuel its growth through acquisitions and winning new business in Asia and the Middle East, where around two-thirds of industries it works with are based.

Managing director Andy Hurst said: “We have been serving the Middle East from our headquarters for many years now but we are seeing demand for our technology in the region growing.

“We want to be a first line of response for predicting conditions rather than them waiting until they have got a disaster on their hands before they call us because we are so far away.

“Our customers are running 24-hour a day processes and if they have a problem, they want a response very, very quickly. The closer we are, the better.

“The consequence of lost production for a day often runs into millions. We are confident we will win more business there.”

Tracerco has had an office in Oman for two years and also works from Shanghai.

It is opening a second Middle East base in Abu Dhabi and a second Chinese office in Alian, which serves the Bohai Bay offshore oil and gas industry.

“We are investing very heavily in R&D. The UK will continue to be our world centre for R&D,” said Mr Hurst.

“It is growing at a rate of probably 10-15% per annum. We do keep outgrowing our R&D and headquarters and so we have expanded further at the technology park.”

The company is continuing to recruit the right people with science or engineering backgrounds and is “always” on the lookout for suitable companies to acquire, according to Mr Hurst.

“We are looking for companies that have strong positions in instrumentation, The more unique those technologies the better,” he said.