A NORTH Tyneside industrial coatings company has brought in new business and created new North East jobs on the back of a £400,000 investment it secured from NEL Fund Managers.
Monitor Coatings obtained the investment at the end of 2010 from the Finance for Business North East Fund Growth Fund that NEL administers.
Since then, the North Shields-based business has created 12 new jobs to take its total workforce up to 46 people, and has increased its annual turnover by almost a quarter, to around £5m.
It has also invested over £500,000 in new equipment and other production assets, and has implemented a range of new IT, health and safety and HR systems that are enabling it to become preferred suppliers to an increasing roster of major multinational clients.
Monitor provides high-quality coatings for customers in a range of industries, such as aerospace, oil and gas exploration, steel and alternative energy generation, where problematic hostile environments make high performance an essential operational need, and numbers internationally-known brands such as Rolls-Royce, Tata (Corus), Halliburton and Bombardier among its customer base.
The company’s management team believes that it has only just begun to scratch the surface in terms of developing the business, especially within the UK, and has plans in place to exceed its recent achievements.
Finance director Philip Winspear says: “Bringing in outside investment gave us both the capital and the confidence we needed to put our expansion plans into action, and to bring in the equipment and systems we knew we needed to help scale Monitor up to become a robust medium-sized business.
“Having the Growth Fund capital in the bank gave us the financial resources we needed to do this, and these production investments are making a huge difference to the commercial results we’re now securing.
“Making improvements to your systems gives blue-chip companies confidence that they can trust you to deliver the quality of product and service that they promise to their own customers, and we’ve been able to become part of the supply chain for an increasing number of this type of business over the last 12 months as a result.
“Despite the prevailing economic climate, we’ve managed to increase our North East workforce by more than a quarter, and the first half of the year having gone very well for us, we expect to be taking on even more staff as the year unfolds.”
Simon Johnson, senior investment executive at NEL Fund Managers, adds: “Monitor’s management team saw the difference that investment capital could make to their operations, and have already secured substantial commercial returns from backing their business ambitions in this way.
“Their success is a great example of how North East companies can use the money available from the Growth Fund to help them realise objectives that would otherwise be out of reach.”
Aimed at regional businesses which are at a development and growth stage, the Growth Fund forms part of the wider Finance for Business North East Fund.
Managed by North East Finance, it will see £125m of investment capital injected into the region by the European Investment Bank, the European Regional Development Fund 2007-13 and the regional development agency over the next five years.
The ERDF 2007-13 programme is bringing over £300m into the region to support innovation, enterprise and business support.
It will help create and safeguard 28,000 new jobs, start 3,000 new businesses and increase the region’s productivity by £1.1bn per annum.
NEL is actively looking to speak to more ambitious North East companies with robust business plans. For more information about NEL’s investment criteria, visit www.nel.co.uk or contact Barrie Hensby on 0845 111 1850.