50% growth for Scottish metal recycler

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John Lawrie Group metal recycling
New facilities on Shetland and in the USA are fuelling JLG's growth.

Scottish metal recycling, decommissioning and steel tubulars company, John Lawrie Group has reported a 50% increase in revenues to £83m. The latest figures logged with companies house show its operating profit more than doubling to £12m.

Late last year the company was the subject of a private equity backed management buy-out.  Four members of the John Lawrie Group management team, and existing shareholders,  in partnership with Rubicon Partners, a leading industrial investor, and principal investment firm Grovepoint, bought out the majority shareholder.

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In December 2017, the firm’s metal recycling division expanded into Shetland with the acquisition of the Rova Head metal recycling facility in Lerwick. The facility reopened in February 2018 after undergoing a major infrastructure upgrade. It can now handle all makes of end of life vehicles on the isles.

The success of the group’s metal recycling division, which incorporates decommissioning services, has been instrumental in the rise in revenues.

In 2017, the division recorded its highest ever annual tonnage of scrap metal throughput, consistently exporting over 10,000 tonnes per month to European steel mills.

Group financial director, Charlie Parker, said: “During 2017 we witnessed an excellent performance across the whole group.  We have been able to focus on our core business and develop an exciting, fully funded growth strategy in partnership with our new investors.

“The acquisition of a new facility in Shetland adds to our existing metal recycling operating bases in Aberdeen, Montrose and Evanton, near Inverness. These allow us to provide our customers across the north of Scotland with an excellent and well-established support service for oil and gas decommissioning and other dismantling projects.

“We have also established a mobile project team that has carried out decom work at numerous port facilities right down the UK east coast.”

He went on to say that the company’s strategy for the metal recycling and decom division included its into other parts of the UK.

The company says that its tubulars business is a principal supplier to the UK and European foundation piling market. It supplies redundant oilfield casing and drill pipe to the construction industry for use as steel piling.

The tubulars division is also active in North America. Based in Houston, Texas, in recent years it has opened storage locations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

“The growth strategy in the US has seen John Lawrie Tubulars enter the Mid-West market in 2018, giving access to the states of Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin amongst others.  The US economy is very buoyant at present resulting in a strong construction sector.  This provides an excellent opportunity for the group to execute expansion plans for the tubulars business in North America,” said Charlie Parker.

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