Scottish Manufacturer Receives Huge Investment Injection

A Stirling-based company is to benefit from one of the largest investments in Scottish engineering and manufacturing in recent years, doubling its capacity and creating new jobs on the site.

The owner of TechnoNICOL (the largest manufacturer of construction materials in Russia and Eastern Europe), Sergey Kolesnikov, is to invest £36.8m (€42.3m) in the Superglass facility at Thistle Industrial Estate in Stirling.

Since Mr. Kolesnikov’s acquisition of Superglass in 2016 through his Inflection Management Corporation vehicle, the business has entered into a close partnership with TechnoNICOL and is now a key regional hub for the Russian construction materials giant.

Ken Munro, Chief Executive Officer of TechnoNICOL UK, Ireland and USA which incorporates the Superglass business, said: “TechnoNICOL’s backing is a real vote of confidence in Scottish manufacturing, both in terms of the quality of the work we do here and the expertise of the workforce. We have delivered a £10M improvement in profitability over this period and significant double-digit sales growth in the current year.

“With this investment, we will have spent close to £50 million on this site since the acquisition of Superglass and this is a further statement of intent regarding the long-term future of our Stirling operations. By our estimations, it’s also one of the biggest single inward investments made in Scotland’s manufacturing sector for a long time. We’ve got significant growth ambitions and this investment will certainly help propel us towards achieving those goals.”

TechnoNICOL has 52 manufacturing facilities across Russia and Europe, but it has opted to throw its weight behind Superglass. The investment will deliver a significant growth in new full-time jobs over the next 18 months to accommodate and fulfil the increased capacity. These jobs will be created across the breadth of the organisation, but primarily in the operations team as well as in product marketing and innovation. This project will allow the plant to double its output from 27,000 tonnes to 60,000 tonnes annually within two years.

Substantial building work will take place on the site to accommodate production equipment, including a 187-tonne furnace and curing ovens. Cooling, cutting and milling equipment will be replaced and an automatic packing system will be installed. Building work will start early in 2018.

Cabinet Secretary for the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work, Keith Brown, said: “This investment, and the jobs it will create, is excellent news for Stirling and for the wider Scottish economy. It rightly shows real confidence in the highly-skilled Scottish workforce.

Superglass’ expansion is backed by Scottish Enterprise. The economic development agency has committed £477,000 towards the project to deliver jobs and growth for the Stirling and Scottish economies.