Mulholland reveals £40m plans for epm technology

epm's head office in Derby

The former owner of Derby composites company epm technology, which was sold this week to a Manchester venture capital firm in a multimillion pound transaction, says the deal had to be done if the company was to survive.

Speaking exclusively to TheBusinessDesk.com, Graham Mulholland, chief executive of epm technology, said the sale to Aero Services Global (AS.G), said with the new backing he wants to grow the firm into a £40m business – that he is “disappointed” it had to come to this.

Mulholland said: “The big firms want to speak to proper companies, but we were still an SME without proper finance and proper infrastructure. It came to the point were we thought ‘enough is enough.

“I don’t mind saying that I’m a bit disappointed that it’s come to this. I do think that some of the larger OE

operators should be a little braver when it comes to dealing with companies such as ours. We put in a lot of effort over the years, but we still never managed to crack that egg.

Graham Mulholland, centre, with epm staff

“However, I’m comfortable with the deal, and with the new backing, we’re aiming to grow the business into a £40m turnover firm.

“We’re staying in Derby, I’m staying on as CEO and we’ll be creating new jobs. We know what we’re good at, and now we have the financial backing we can only get better.”

Mulholland said that since the deal has gone through, epm technology has take a £3m order from an aerospace firm. “Without the new funding, the deal wouldn’t have been sanctioned,” he said.

epm employs around 140 people at its base on Raynesway in Derby. The most up-to-date accounts for epm – to June 30, 2016 – show the company made a loss of nearly £1.5m and had lost three F1 customers. Turnover was just over £3.9m compared to £6.2m in the prior year.

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