£1.3m investment sees furniture firm grow

Oct 29 2009 By The Journal

A SCHOOL furniture design and manufacturing company launched with a £200 overdraft has just moved into a newly-built factory as it wins bigger business across the UK.

Ambic has secured a £1.3m bank facility to relocate from its old premises on the Stella Gill Industrial Estate to a 24,000sq ft factory on a five-acre site in Pelton Fell, Chester-le-Street. The move will allow the company to bring in new machinery and step up production.

The firm was set up by David Potter in 1983 – when he had just a bag of tools and a £200 overdraft – working from a 320sq ft unit in Byker, Newcastle.

He used his engineering skills to make technical drawing boards, which proved so popular that he was invited by Gateshead Council to design and make furniture for classrooms so pupils could use computers as they became standard issue in schools.

Over the years the company has expanded to become a market leader in the design and manufacture of school furniture. It also supplies the NHS, police forces, blue-chip companies and universities.

The company, which now has 40 staff and a turnover of around £2m, had outgrown its old base which comprised four buildings and had become increasingly inefficient.

The move to a new building provides Ambic with the opportunity to purchase the larger, essential manufacturing tools that had hindered growth, rearrange their production facilities to increase efficiency and take advantage of energy savings.

Managing director Potter said: "The old premises had become unsuitable for our production operations and by moving we now have the capability to take the business forward and produce more furniture to meet greater demands, ensuring that we can continue to turn orders around quickly and deliver on our promises."

With assistance from the DTI, the funding with NatWest and Lombard, the asset finance arm of the Royal Bank of Scotland, was provided by Dominic Duke from Lombard and Veronica Chisholm from the Lombard team in Durham.

Duke, Lombard’s senior business manager business and commercial banking in Durham, said: "Ambic is a well-respected company whose products are used by clients across the UK. The move to a new, modern factory will undoubtedly strengthen the company and enable them to take the business on to its next stage."