A £1.2m Ministry of Defence contract means an Ellesmere Port firm will create jobs.
Proweld Engineering Services, based in Ellesmere Port, has secured the contract after Lloyds TSB Commercial provided a £350,000 Enterprise Finance Guarantee loan.
Established in 1998, Proweld is a mechanical engineering contractor that provides pipe and steelwork fabrications and plant refit services to companies in the nuclear, petrochemical, chemical and food processing industries.
Proweld boosted its capacity by relocating to 20,000sq ft premises on Olympic Park, Poole Hall Road, in April 2009.
This follows a £350,000 Government-backed EFG loan from Lloyds TSB Commercial alongside flexible overdraft facilities, which gave Proweld sufficient scale to secure the current contract.
The business is on course to reach a turnover of a £5m this year – up from £2.3m in 2009 – and thanks to the new contract will add a new project manager and 12 new welders to its 50-strong team.
Tony Meadows, managing director of Proweld Engineering Services, said: “After becoming incorporated in 2004, we set out a long-term strategy for the business that focused on securing key industry accreditations which would facilitate stable and sustainable growth.
“While we did see a dip in activity during the recession, our customers operate across a wide variety of sectors and we have been steadily diversifying our services for a number of years, which meant we were in a good position to weather the storm.
“Winning the new MoD contract wouldn’t have been possible without the funding provided by Lloyds TSB Commercial, which has been crucial to our growth and has enabled us to tender for and win large contracts.
“We have also aligned ourselves for a strategic partnership with Haden Freeman Ltd, the UK’s leading independent strategic design engineering consultancy, in order to bid for larger future contracts.”
