Dudley-based Worcester Presses (
www.worcesterpresses.co.uk) — a 14-employee provider of mechanical and hydraulic presses, coil-handling equipment and press ancillaries — has been bought by its management team following a record year that saw its turnover increase by £700,000 to £3.2 million, based on strong demand from the automotive, aerospace and construction sectors.
Company owner, Charles Higgins, has sold his majority stake in the business to current directors Russell Hartill, Tony Carter and Ivan Littlewood.
The three, who all have extensive experience in the machinery industry, have signalled their intentions by investing in a new CNC lathe and recruiting administrative and machining apprentices.
Mr Hartill, who has taken over as managing director, said: “Worcester Presses has over 69 years of history, along with a proud reputation for the high quality of the machines we supply and the high level of customer service we provide.
This is a fantastic business for us to develop, and the platform we have in place for future growth has come from the hard work, knowledge and contacts that Mr Higgins has brought to the business over the last 40 years.
He will continue in a sales and consultancy role and we are looking forward to ‘leveraging’ his expertise as we look to build on the 20% rise in sales achieved in 2018.
“A lot of this growth has been down to our ability to deliver turn-key packages, as more customers look to have their hydraulic and mechanical presses tailored to their exact specification — often with the integration of coil handling as part of the installation.”
The mechanical Chin Fong range of presses is still the core element of Worcester Presses’ business, closely followed by its growing range of Tomac coil-handling equipment and Yeh Chiun hydraulic presses.
The company has also signed an agreement with a press transfer system specialist that will allow it to supply complete automation/robotic packages, thereby enabling customers to streamline labour-intensive manufacturing applications.