Perth’s Edwards Engineering has targets in sight as turns 50

A Perth-based engineering firm is celebrating five decades in business by mapping out a growth plan that is set to include “strategic” acquisitions.

Edwards Engineering has some 60 staff and a client base that spans the food and drink, manufacturing, agricultural and construction sectors.

It expects to ramp up annual turnover from the current £7.5 million to £20m within the next three years. Part of that growth will involve “aggressively seeking new skills and capacity via strategic acquisitions”.

Chief executive Ben Carter (pictured above), whose career has included roles at Rio Tinto and Babcock International, and hails from, coincidentally, Perth, in Western Australia, said: “When we bought Edwards two-and-a-half years ago, we saw a solid reputation to build upon and a multi-skilled and committed team.

“We are proud of our long history, however we know we are only as good as the last project. We want to steadily grow the Edwards business and to make selective acquisitions in the engineering sector UK-wide.

“We are actively looking at businesses that either have succession issues or are non-core to bigger engineering groups where, through further investment and improvements in productivity we can realise significant revenue synergies.”

Apprentices make up 20 per cent of the 40-strong engineering workforce at the firm’s 45,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Perth.