Glass manufacturer receives additional £1m funding

Glass manufacturer Brownhills has received an additional £1m in funding from investor Duke Royalty after the success of its initial £6.5m deployed earlier this year.

The money will support the purchase of freehold property used by one of Brownhill’s subsidiaries, as well as buying additional toughening and processing equipment to enable the group to meet demand.

Brownhills is headquartered in Aldridge, at Brownhills Glass, while the group also includes PLG in the north east. It used the initial investment in April to buy the remaining 70% stake in Tufwell Glass, a West Sussex-based specialist supplier of glazed partitioning which serves the London office market.

The £1m investment has been made on the same initial cash-on-cash yield of more than 13% and with a duration of 30 years.

Duke Royalty is an alternative finance provider with a model that is based on royalty financing, so its return is based on the subsequent performance of the business.

Neil Johnson, chief executive of Duke Royalty, said: “Brownhills has experienced strong year on year turnover growth which has resulted in Duke benefitting from its third consecutive maximum adjustment factor reset.

“Given that this additional investment is primarily being used to fund growth initiatives within Brownhills we are hopeful that this turnover growth will be continued into the future.”

Turnover growth for the consolidated Brownhills group year-on-year exceeded the maximum possible adjustment factor of +6%, and the payments due to Duke will increase by 6% from April 2019. Annual payments will now total £1.06m a year.