By Scott Wright
AN AYRSHIRE-BASED manufacturer which owns one of the last remaining foundries in the UK has changed hands in a management buyout.
Peter Currie, Brian Taggart, David Armour and Gary Brese formed Precision Tooling & Castings to acquire the business after securing bank funding worth nearly £4.5 million.
Precision Tooling & Castings is the new holding company for a group of manufacturing businesses, including Glen Foundry, trading as Anderson Stewart Castings, which produces castings in a range of alloys for the automotive, oil and petrochemical industries in the UK and overseas. It employs around 150 staff in total.
Glen Foundry, which employs 70 staff in Glengarnock, operates one of only three remaining foundries in the UK. Its new owner noted yesterday that major investment has been made at the site in the last 10 years to introduce new robotics for automation, increasing its capacity.
READ MORE: Duo engineers Scots foundry buyout
Other firms in the group include Precision Tooling Services and Advanced Manufacturing Centre. All of subsidiaries are based in Ayrshire.
Precision Tooling, which has a staff of 70 at its site Prestwick Airport’s aerospace park, manufactures machined components for the aerospace, automotive, nuclear, renewables and oil and gas industries.
The more recently-established Advanced Manufacturing Centre, based in Kilmarnock, supplies engineering parts for the aerospace, automotive, nuclear and rail sectors.
The buyout comes around four years after Anderson Stewart and Precision Tooling Services were acquired in a multi-million-pound deal by engineers Allan Brese and Graham Ross. Both have retained small shareholdings in the business.
Following the buyout, which was backed by Barclays, Peter Currie has become managing director of the group, with Brian Taggart becoming technical director and Gary Brese taking the production director post. David Armour continues as financial director.
Mr Currie and Mr Taggart, who has worked for the business for around 30 years, each hold an 18% stake.
Mr Currie said: “We are delighted to have completed this transaction. The management team at Precision Tooling & Castings Ltd has a strong understanding of our customers’ needs and the many strengths existing within our business. With the support of Barclays, our funder, the MBO allows us to invest in developing our workforce, services and technologies even further.”
Mr Currie told The Herald the business was performing well, barring a “small downturn in the automotive side” which he said is not linked to Brexit. He highlighted the opportunity for the group’s Advanced Manufacturing Centre to move into electrochemical machine manufacturing, to branch into new areas such as the medical sector.
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