Strong sales boost shredding firm’s expansion plans

DOCUMENT security firm Shred-it, which has its UK headquarters in Manchester, has revealed half year sales of more than £3.1m from its North West hub and £11.1m across its UK-wide operations.

The company which has a 10,000 sq ft facility in Trafford Park and opened its head office in Sale earlier this year, operates a network of 15 branches nationwide and expects full year turnover across the UK group to hit  £21m.

Manchester’s figure represents a 22% increase on sales for the same period to the end of July last year, and the company expects full year revenues from Manchester to exceed £4.5m, despite the tough environment.

The Manchester hub was the first to be opened in the UK by its Canadian parent, back in 1999. Around 70 staff now work across the two sites in Manchester and expansion plans mean more staff will be taken on by the end of the year.

Operations director Neil Percy told TheBusinessDesk that the company plans to open another site in the North West in the next 12 months, partly because the Manchester branch is at full capacity.

The company is looking at possible locations in Preston, Wirral or Wrexham and that he expects to take between 6,000 and 10,000 sq ft of space. It is also looking at opening another hub in South Wales in the next year.

Mr Percy said: “We were expecting to be affected by the downturn because we are a service business, but instead we have continued to grow.

“I think that’s because the market is waking up to issues of security, there have been several high profile security breaches of late, so more people are looking at this in their business.”

Shred-it’s Manchester site  has just won a three-year framework agreement to become the preferred provider of on-site document destruction services for the North West’s 50 NHS and Primary Care Trusts. Mr Percy estimates the deal will generate up to £250,000 in additional revenues for the company before 2010.

Mr Percy added that future revenue streams could come from servicing the home workers market.

“More and more people are working from home and that means they are taking sensitive documents home too, but are companies really thinking about the implications of that? Are employees disposing of documents in the same way they would in the office?” he said.