Niko, a leading UK manufacturer of lifting equipment and conveyor systems, has moved to new premises in Southam after a decade of increasing sales.
The company, which turns over £2.2 million and exports as far afield as Asia and the United States, has bought a 7,600 sq ft manufacturing unit on the town’s new Insight Business Park, built by Tomkins Construction of Kytes Hardwick, near Rugby
Managing director David Upton said that far from consolidating, the company was poised to launch into two new markets this year – home improvements, with sliding door fittings for wardrobes and cupboards; and adventure parks, with aerial runways for ‘combat courses’ in trees.
“Our core industry is lifting equipment, lightweight overhead gantry cranes, conveyor systems and sliding door gear for industry but we will certainly be attacking these two new markets this year.”
For the past ten years, Niko – whose parent company is Helm Hellas SA in Greece – was based on the Kineton Road Industrial Estate manufacturing a range of equipment for the automotive, engineering and food manufacturing sectors, among others.
Mr Upton said it he took the decision to move last year. “We’d just experienced a further eight per cent growth in sales and it was obvious that we need much larger premises to help us expand at an even greater rate.”
He contacted Leamington-based commercial property consultants ehB Commercial to sell the company’s Kineton Road Industrial Estate site and to find new premises nearby.
Mr Upton said: “ehB Commercial were a pleasure to deal with. They were quick to sell our old premises and made the finding and purchasing of our brand new factory unit simple and stress free. We have invested £625,000 in the new site and are now ready for the swift expansion of our business.”
ehB Commercial director Simon Hain said: “Insight Business Park, off Southam’s Welsh Road East, has been a great success, bucking the trend in a poor market. We have sold more than 50 per cent of the scheme off plan, with further interest in the remaining units – all good evidence of movement in the small business unit sector.”
In the last few months, ehB Commercial has found two sites in Coventry totalling more than 139,000 sq ft for Ney, Britain’s leading independent distributor of woodworking machines and woodworking materials; and an 11,000 sq ft unit on Hermes Court on the Tachbrook Park estate in Leamington for The Craft Company, a supplier of cake decoration materials and ingredients.
Last year, for the third year running, the firm was voted Warwickshire’s ‘Most Active Agent of the Year’ by Estates Gazette, a leading industry publication. The journal also cited Simon Hain as Warwickshire’s ‘Deal Maker of the Year’.