Kingspan’s small turbine business to be big in Japan

KINGSPAN’S lesser-known environmental division has, until recently, owned an even more low-key business — a company which manufactures and installs small wind turbines. However, it emerged last week that this business has been acquired by SD Green Energy, a Japanese company based in Tokyo.

SD is setting up a new division called SD Wind Energy Ltd and will expand with the addition of extra staff and manufacturing capabilities of the site of the former Kingspan operation in Stewarton, Scotland. The new owners will continue to make Kingspan-branded products under a licensing agreement and will market the wind turbine range within their energy portfolio.

Sales at the business are believed to be in the low single-digit millions. That’s in the context of the €180m revenue for the environmental division, so a small operation in the growing group, headed by Gene Murtagh, which now has revenues of €3.7bn.