Engineering company Tanfield Group is revamping its corporate structure as it looks to build on a 60% rise in half-year sales.
The County Durham business is streamlining its operations into two divisions, one specialising in zero emission electric vehicles and the other in aerial platforms and other powered access equipment.
Stanley-based Tanfield is also promoting business development director Darren Kell to chief executive and appointing Brendan Campbell as operations director in preparation for what it calls "a new phase" in its development. The group has transformed itself from a business specialising in assembly solutions and imaging products to an electric vehicle and aerial platform maker via a series of acquisitions.
Tanfield revealed yesterday that the changes had seen turnover rise to £16.5m in the six months to the end of June from £10.4m during the same period last year with most of the increase coming from organic growth.
The highest growth area was its zero emission vehicle division, which makes electric-powered trucks mainly under the Smith Electric Vehicles brand and saw turnover rise to £8.8m - just £800,000 behind the sales achieved during the whole of last year.
Its powered access division, which takes in the Aerial Access business and recently acquired UpRight Powered Access, clocked up sales of £3.1m during the half year compared with £4.4m for the whole of 2005. The boom in business helped pre-tax profits rise to £1.7m against earnings of £330,000 for the same period last year.
Tanfield said the order book for zero emission vehicles had continued to grow with orders for its delivery vehicles from fleet operators including Sainsbury's, TNT and Enterprise.
It is linking up with mass production van and truck makers who will provide `donor' body shells in which Tanfield's Faraday electric motor will be placed, allowing the group to ramp up production of the vehicles.
In aerial access, Tanfield says orders in the UpRight business, which makes aerial platforms, are running at four times the level when the County Durham company bought the business in April for £10.5m.
The group is leasing the 250,000sqft former LG Electronics plant in Washington to act as the final assembly plant for all of its business.
It plans to create 400 jobs with the move, which has been backed with a £1.95m grant from regional development agency One NorthEast.
Tanfield Group chairman Roy Stanley said: "We are now embarking upon a new phase in the group's development. The sectors in which we operate offer us tremendous potential for further profitable growth."