Grainger & Worrall team are focused on the future

Bridgnorth’s Grainger & Worrall Limited, a provider of casting, machining and engineering solutions for prototyping, motorsport and supercars, employs more than 700 staff across the region.

The business, whose customer base includes Tesla, Lucid, Porsche, McLaren, Maserati, Bugatti and Aston Martin, recently announced the completion of a management buyout and the appointment of a new board.

The completion of the buyout, which coincides with the formation of an umbrella brand, Evolution Castings Group Limited, heralds a new era for the business, with the transition of control for the business from the Grainger Family whose involvement has been integral to the business since its formation 77 years ago.

In March, a subsidiary of the company, Grainger & Worrall Engineering was purchased by Leicester-based Bridge Aluminium.

New Grainger & Worrall Executive Chairman, Andrew Burn, said the MBO marked the end of the challenges and the business is now ready to push on with its strategic goals.

“I don’t think there’s any secret that the business, like many others, has had external challenges over the course of the last 18 months to two years, with Covid and Brexit,” he said.

“For example, we had to furlough a number of staff and some then left during Covid. That depletes your skills base and trying to recruit post-Covid has been difficult, with priorities of workers changing.

“Training development wasn’t there which is understandable as the funding wasn’t available and the business was starting to have challenges.We have reset that now.

“Last year, the Grainger family decided to take proactive action on the challenges and engaged with stakeholders. I came in and worked with the advisers to help with restructuring and that’s what we have done. For the last seven months there has been a phenomenal amount of work to resolve issues in the business.

“The company has very strong roots and the business is genuinely market leading in terms of its work for worldwide parties such as Tesla. There are only a small group of companies who can provide the depth and breadth of work which Grainger & Worrall does.

“We have got to a point where we have staff with their heads held high, very proud of what they are doing. Production is going through the roof again and our customers are demanding more and more. We have aspirations now to grow the business to £100m over the course of the next two to three years.

"We have started looking at potential acquisitions in the US with a view to doing deals over there. We will look to grow the business through acquisition and organic growth.”

He added: “I am very keen to promote our ESG – environmental, social and governance responsibility – and we will have a very clear strategy. There’s a full refresh going on at the moment around this.

“We want to build a network of like-minded businesses and see what we can share with them and vice versa, so we work together for the benefit of each other.

“Community wise, we are supporting Severn Hospice for the next 12 months and have been actively involved in events such as the Bridgnorth Walk, with 30 staff doing that. We plan to do more and more.

“We want to raise the profile globally, nationally and locally. And we want to recruit staff with the right skills, while also moving some of the temporary staff onto permanent roles. We are trying to do everything you would expect a good corporate to do.

“We have recruited a learning development manager to specifically support staff and we will create learning passports for every member of the team.

“They will know what training they need and what is available to them. I am very keen to invest heavily into the human capital in the business in order to address the replenishment of skills.”