Powering UK Industry

The industrials sector is known as the engine of the UK economy. Successful UK businesses are driving growth a global scale through a range of strategies, including buy and build, international expansion and organic growth. A private equity partnership can support management teams to unlock these.

LDC has a strong track record in supporting growth in the industrials sector through private equity. We have invested in 32 industrials businesses over the last decade, and the average enterprise value growth for our exited investments in the sector is 106%.

LDC has a long track record of adding value to industrials businesses across key sub sectors including automotive, aerospace, chemicals, packaging, the built environment, manufacturing, and energy & renewables.

In a sector historically reliant on analogue technology, digitalisation can help drive growth. The benefits are twofold. Firstly, it can give businesses a product-based competitive advantage through speed, agility, quality and innovation; and secondly, it can help drive efficiencies including reduced downtime, lower wastage and maintenance costs, as well as mitigating the challenges of skilled labour shortage.

Businesses are also de-risking supply chains by reducing dependencies on single points of potential failure – as well as considering strategies such as dual sourcing or nearshoring. We helped water pump manufacturer Stuart Turner optimise its supply chain, which lowered risk and reduced costs by more than £200,000 a year.

Buy and build continues to be a popular route to growth – partnering with private equity can help businesses to scale quickly in this way. Our portfolio company Express Engineering expanded its offering to the subsea market by acquiring the assets of QA Weld Tech, which saw it grow headcount by 20% to more than 230.

Investing in world class facilities is also key to growth in industrials, and creates an opportunity to incorporate ESG objectives as part of wider growth plans. We helped ELE Advanced Technologies to relocate to a new, larger manufacturing facility. The facility, with solar panels installed as part of its drive towards cleaner energy, increases capacity by 40%, with potential for further expansion.