The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Bouyant times for firm a year on from its sale
Jobs are being created and the order book is bulging at engineering giant Peter Brotherhood a year after its £35 million sale.
Staff numbers at the 150-year-old Werrington company are expected to grow by 10 per cent as the volume of work passing through the factory rises.
The healthy outlook for the business, in Papyrus Road, which has 121 staff, was outlined by Massimo Bizzi, chief operating officer of the Howden Group, which bought Peter Brotherhood from Chatteris-based Avingtrans just over a year ago.
Mr Bizzi said: “We consider the acquisition of Peter Brotherhood as a huge success for Howdens. We have gone through an integration process which is going very well. Integrating a company into a larger organisation takes time. There are many positive aspects that can be seen, for example the Howden organisation has been able to promote more business for Peter Brotherhood. This has resulted in additional job opportunities – there has been an increase in the range of 10 per cent in the headcount.
“The financial plan we had in place had an ambitious expansion for Peter Brotherhood and we are more than achieving our expectations – and we are probably a bit ahead of schedule in achieving those expectations.
“We are talking about an increase in revenue of about twice as much as they used to do and that is the result of a great association with Howdens, which is helping them a lot, and that they have more time now to focus on doing what they do best, which is build steam turbines.
“We have won two very important contracts for steam turbines for the oil and gas industry for floating production storage and offloading sector and we have had commercial success in wave-to-energy plans which offers potential for Peter Brotherhood to expand.”
Looking to the future, Mr Bizzi said: “The site is a very good one and we believe there is knowledge and credibility withthepeopleithas.Icannot imagine any scenario where we are not successful with that business that we would be leaving the site. It is much larger than we need so it supports significant growth.”