A £100,000 investment from UK Steel Enterprise has helped a Teesside heating company, with a turnover heading towards £3m, re-locate to larger premises and give its growth potential a major boost.
BMM Heaters designs and manufactures industrial and commercial air heating systems and has invested a total of £430,000 in a move from Middlesbrough to Redcar. The company, widely recognised for its innovative range of products, now has the space it desperately needed to house new equipment, bring a powder-coating facility in-house and increase its 25-strong skilled workforce.
The UK Steel Enterprise investment has come from its Growth Fund, backed by the government’s Regional Growth Fund, which can provide investments of up to £1m to companies in steels areas looking to expand and create jobs.
Kevin Murray-Myers, who set up BMM heaters with Sean Byrne around 11 years ago, said: “We were just bursting at the seams and UK Steel Enterprise’s contribution to this expansion project has been really important for us.
“We expect to create at least seven more jobs in the near future including more engineers, sheet metal workers and a General Manager. Bringing our powder coating process in-house will save money and increase efficiency and we also plan to improve our testing facilities, IT and storage.
“We are investing substantially in research and development to keep us ahead of the competition with the emphasis on a new generation of high-efficiency equipment,” he added.
BMM Heaters operates in every sector where air heating is required and customers range from London’s Olympia exhibition centre, Manchester United football club, Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and the Co-op to holiday and aerospace companies, a theatre and even a zoo. It boasts a growing list of accreditations and verifications that meet the constantly-changing regulations relating to climate change and safety.
“We are increasingly being named as specified contractors,” said Kevin Murray-Myers. “There is still a huge amount of potential for us in the UK but we are also in Austria, France, Hungary, Sweden and Spain. We saw growth of around 20% last year after a relatively steady couple of years and are pursuing a carefully-planned expansion.
“This is the second time UK Steel Enterprise has supported us. We needed £50,000 about six years ago when we were developing a particular product and the banks were not very forthcoming. It worked out extremely well and this £100,000 investment has been vital. Sarah Thorpe on Teesside and Gordon Jamieson at UKSE’s Sheffield HQ have been extremely supportive and painstakingly helped us to work through this project.”
Sarah Thorpe of UK Steel Enterprise, Tata Steel’s business-support subsidiary, said: “BMM Heaters is a well established business that needed funding to relocate, expand and create jobs. As an existing UKSE client with an experienced management team and well established product range we were particularly pleased to be able to support the company again.”
Details of UK Steel Enterprise’s support for businesses in steel areas is available from 01642 777 777 and atwww.uksteelenterprise.co.uk. BMM Heaters is on 01642 240 700 and at www.bmmheaters.co.uk