Member Article

Third NEL investment for AMD Specialist Coatings

A specialist industrial coatings firm is investing in additional new equipment to increase capacity at its Team Valley premises - and in the staff that will be using it.

AMD Specialist Coatings is aiming to capitalise on the strong long-term relationships it has established with its largest clients, as well as being able to fulfil new contracts that are coming in on the back of a successful business development drive.

New racks are being installed in the firm’s blasting facility which will be able to hold bigger components, and a new overhead crane is also being introduced to enable them to be transported around the premises more easily.

Having just successfully seen its first two apprentices through their 18-month training programme and into permanent jobs, the company’s management team is now also looking to bring two more local young people onto its apprenticeship programme.

And it is also investigating providing leadership training for long-serving staff, to enhance their skillsets and enable them to take on new responsibilities as opportunities arise.

To help support its development plans, AMD has secured a £160,000 investment from the Finance For Business North East Growth Fund that is administered by regional fund management firm NEL Fund Managers.

It’s the third time that AMD has received an investment from NEL, which originally supported the management buy-out of the company conducted by managing director Steve Davis in spring 2008.

AMD then attracted a £120,000 Growth Fund investment in October 2010 to support its service expansion plans, and used those funds to bring in a new stoving oven, spray booth and other equipment, as well as installing new IT systems and a new environmental lighting system across its Team Valley premises.

AMD Coatings has more than 50 years experience in wet paint and powder coating services throughout the North East and across the UK on projects of all sizes, and is a fully accredited partner of Akzo Nobel, the world’s largest producer of powder coating products.

Its customer base includes major names such as WD Close & Sons, Pearson Engineering, Responsive Group, the Express Group, Soil Machine Dynamics and Tesco.

Steve Davis says: “There’s been a noticeable pick-up in market demand over the last few months, especially from our existing clients, and we’ve managed to achieve ‘preferred supplier’ status with a number of them, which gives us a very solid platform on which to base the next stage of our development.

“The equipment we’re bringing in will physically increase our capacity to manage more and larger contracts, and teaming this investment with the different kinds of training opportunities that we’re providing to the workforce will bring real improvements to the way that we operate.

“Our first two apprentices have done fantastically well and have more than earned the full-time jobs we’ve now given them. We’re keen to do more in this area, to give other young people the chance to learn new career skills, and hope to be taking on two new apprentices in the near future.

“We’ve always had a very positive relationship with the NEL team, so it was natural for us to talk to them again about our latest plans, and the process of applying for the investment was once again a very smooth and positive experience.”

Simon Johnson, senior investment executive at NEL Fund Managers, adds: “The AMD management team has always maintained a clear vision of what it wants to achieve with the investments we’ve provided over the last four years, and they set an excellent example of how to use outside capital to achieve commercial goals that would otherwise take much longer to 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.

NEL is looking to make around 130 investments over the five-year life span of the Growth Fund, and is actively looking to speak to ambitious north east companies with robust business plans.

For more information about NEL’s investment criteria, visit www.nel.co.uk or contact the investment team on 0845 111 1850.

The ERDF 2007-13 programme is bringing over £300m into North East England 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.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Liz Luff .