Firm revs up growth with move
COMPANY WHICH COUNTS ELITE SPORTS CARS MAKERS AMONG ITS CLIENTS IS LOOKING OVERSEAS
A GREATER Manchester car finance company has more than quadrupled its floor space and driven up staff numbers following a council-backed move to a new site.
Rochdale-headquartered Marsh, which works with major car companies like Stonecare, Arnold Clarke and Evans Halshaw, has spent a whopping £1.7m buying and sympathetically renovating Victorian Crossfield Mill.
Rochdale council offered the company business rate relief for six months and a grant to help finance the move, which has already created 10 new jobs in a variety of roles including IT, sales and collections.
Having moved from a smaller premises just off Chichester Street, the company’s floorspace has now jumped from under 4,000 square feet to 22,000, and managing director Andrew Marsh is looking to double his workforce to 120 over the next five years.
Managing director Andrew Marsh, whose father founded the company, which originally sold personal loans, in 1973, said: “I’ve always lived and worked in Rochdale, so it was the first place I looked when we outgrew our old base. We’ve got big plans for the next five years and we want to stay in Rochdale as we do that.
“We’ve got excellent transport links here and a fantastic workforce. More than 90 per cent of our staff live in the borough and we’ve always recruited talented people here.
“I think that is due to both the large population and the success of the local schools and colleges. I also like the fact that we have such a character-filled building like this. I’m really looking forward to bringing clients and visitors here and showing them round.”
The company, which also counts the makers of elite sports cars among its clients, is now looking at expanding into the overseas market, with plans to open a new business called LM Operations to offer car finance to customers in Southern Ireland. LM Operations staff will also be based at Crossfield Mill.