Investment and Development
2007 saw near record capital investment of £7.2m in addition to the
two acquisitions, particularly covering tooling, extruders, extruder
infrastructure and
recycling facilities.
The largest single project was the investment of over £2m in South Wales for the new Twentyfour-Seven window system recently launched by Swish Window and Door Systems.
Elsewhere there was substantial expenditure at Swish Building Products on extruders and extrusion services to enhance production capability and on tooling at both Telford Extrusions and Custom Extrusions demonstrating ongoing product improvements. Major upgrading of recycling facilities were also carried out by Dekura Polypro at both Telford and the new Willenhall sites to enable processing of post consumer waste and improved sorting, pulverising and compounding of recycled products. Additionally there was more investment in the commercial vehicle fleet, a new wide bodied lamination line and various factory plant and IT systems.
People
The average number of employees working for the Group in the year was 2197, down 1% from 2006 with additional numbers in extrusion and recycling being more than offset by efficiency driven reductions within Building Products division.
The directors would like to thank employees for their efforts in a difficult market during 2007 and appreciate the importance of their continued commitment in what is expected to be another challenging year.
The Group was saddened to learn of the death of non executive director Doug Rogers on 12 December 2007. His contribution will be
greatly missed.