Klarius Group ranks 6th in Sunday Times Fast Track

The Klarius Group ranks sixth in the list of ‘top 10 manufacturers with biggest international sales’ published in The Sunday Times HSBC International Track 200 league table, where the company also achieved 62nd place overall. The league table ranks Britain’s privately owned companies with the fastest growing international sales. It is researched and compiled by Fast Track and was published in The Sunday Times on 8th July 2012. The published figures show 70 per cent of sales being generated outside of the UK, mainly in Continental Europe, with sales growing 58 per cent between 2008 and 2010.

Group chairman Tony Wilson commented: “First of all, it is great to see manufacturing companies being heralded as both important and successful. The commitment, drive and innovation shown by all of our staff, from the Board right through management, sales, R&D, production and logistics is deserving of huge thanks. Without those people, who maintain quality and contribute their skills on an everyday basis, we would not have achieved the phenomenal growth that we have. A solid commitment to investment, product development, quality and European manufacturing has given us a strategic edge that importers and badge engineering companies have struggled to compete with.”

Paul Hannah, international business development director for Klarius Group added: “You hear this a lot, but still, being an entrepreneurial company makes us flexible, lean and most importantly in charge of our own destiny. If we decide to allocate resources to improving the logistics and stock facilities of our direct customers, in order to drive our own sales volumes, we can, and we frequently do. Likewise, we have been able to buy and turnaround automotive manufacturing facilities in the UK, Spain and Germany in order to produce our own products and bring them to market before our competitors.”

Dave Cheetham, Klarius group CFO commented: “The business has never been highly geared in terms of debt versus value and company turnover, but it is satisfying to reach a 200 million euro plus turnover so quickly, and in challenging market conditions. We have also reduced our already low net debt figure while continuing to fund growth, which adds stability and allows our long term investment plans to continue; that net debt figure is in fact even lower than the position before the Group’s acquisition of Quinton Hazell in 2010, which is quite an achievement.

“Our commitment to developing and improving the manufacturing base here in Europe has already paid dividends, and maintaining a comprehensive manufacturing capacity will continue to be part of our long-term strategy. A positive financial result in 2011, while the market actually contracted, just shows that the effort we are putting in to add to the value stream and increase both the efficiency and competitiveness of ourselves and our customers is a sound policy, providing us with the financial strength and flexibility to react to market needs and continue to grow.”