Automotive engineer secures "significant win for British engineering"

PRECISION engineering firm VTL Group has received £1.5m investment from the Business Growth Fund after securing a deal that is “a significant win for British engineering”.

Huddersfield-based VTL will use the funding for a capital investment programme before starting an eight-year project to supply engine components through Ryobi UK to Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) for use in its new engine platform.

VTL’s chief executive Bruno Jouan said: “The cam carrier project is a significant win for the business, and for British engineering. We’re delighted to be working with JLR on what is an incredibly exciting project.”

From its manufacturing sites in Huddersfield, VTL supply components to JLR’s new £350m factory in Wolverhampton in the second half of 2016 for use in the first Jaguar engine designed and built in-house since the late 1990s. The investment, which comes alongside loan funding from HSBC, builds on an initial £4m invested in September 2013.

VTL is one of the UK’s largest precision contract manufacturing businesses within its specific niche areas of turbo and transmission components. Existing customers include Cummins, Toyota, Renault, Nissan, Delphi and Schaeffler.

Andy Gregory, BGF’s regional head of the north, added: “BGF has now backed 23 manufacturing firms in the past three years, including VTL Group. These companies are critical to the UK economy and our global competitiveness, and their success depends on having the right infrastructure in place to help them implement their growth ambitions.”