Liberty saves 60 Kidderminster foundry jobs in Amtek buyout

They are among 550 people employed by the Amtek group in the UK, which has been bought out of administration by the Liberty House Group.

Headed by tycoon Sanjeev Gupta, Liberty has become a major force in the metals industry in the last few years, buying parts of Tata Steel and rescuing 1,000 Black Country jobs when it bought large parts of the collapsed Caparo Industries group.

It has now acquired a manufacturer of cast aluminium engine and vehicle components, buying the trade and assets of Amtek Aluminium Castings (Witham) Limited and King Automotive Systems Limited (Amtek UK) for an undisclosed sum from administrators PwC.

Amtek UK, which supplies major vehicle manufacturers, has plants Kidderminster, Coventry and at Witham in Essex.

The 30,000 square metre, 60-worker, plant at Kidderminster, makes aluminium die castings. Kidderminster contains a foundry supplying materials to Witham and Coventry.

During the past three years, the business has benefited from a multi-million-pound investment programme in new equipment, including an advanced casting facility at Kidderminster and enhanced machining capacity at Coventry.

The Amtek business will now be known as Liberty Aluminium Technologies.It manufactures aluminium die castings and undertakes a range of processes including machining, assembly and testing of parts used in engines and powertrain components.

Almost all of its products go directly to leading vehicle manufacturers in the UK and EU.

Sanjeev Gupta, executive chairman of the Liberty House Group said: "Despite current challenges, this operation is a valuable asset and a vital part of the UK and EU automotive supply chain.

"We are very pleased to use our resources and extensive experience in the automotive sector to rescue this enterprise and enable it to recover and reach its true potential.

"We greatly value the specialist skills of the workforce and we will be working closely with them and with key customers to get the business back on a sound footing."

Liberty said that, though it had a strong order book and a market-leading position, Amtek UK struggled under the weight of debt and cash flow difficulties.

The deal strengthens Liberty’s position as a top level supplier to virtually all of the major car manufacturers and gives it capacity to supply a wide spectrum of aluminium and steel parts.

Liberty says it sees Amtek’s product range as complementing its other automotive engineering plants in the West Midlands, its Speciality Steels business in Yorkshire, which also supplies the sector, and its aluminium smelting operation in Scotland. The group is currently developing a major alloy wheel manufacturing plant next to its primary aluminium smelter in Fort William, which will supply around 2m wheels a year to UK vehicle manufacturers.