9 minute read
District Focus: Ards and
District Focus: Ards and North Down
Ards and North Down is a hotchpotch of successful business entities. From globally recognised brands to names making waves behind the scenes in their respective industries. Emma Deighan talks to those at the top of their game in the district.
Of the 11 district council areas in Northern Ireland, seven saw declines in the number of employee jobs over the year to September 2020. Ards and North Down, however, saw an increase of 843 according to the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency.
It’s only one statistic out of many that illustrate the buoyancy of industry in the area, even despite one of the most challenging backdrops, but it’s the established names there that demonstrate the true success of commerce and industry in the area.
Based in Bangor, Whale is one of those big success stories. Part of US company Brunswick Corporation, it was recently integrated into its Advanced Systems Group. ASG is a portfolio of brands that serve the marine and RV markets around the world as a ‘one-stop shop’ for parts and accessories, through both aftermarket and OEM channels. Currently there are 220 people employed at the Bangor design and manufacturing facility. The company’s heritage is rich, Patrick Roberts, managing director and director of operations ASG EMEA, tells Ambition.
“Munster Simms, as the business was originally known, was founded in 1810 as an importing business, eventually going on to have one of the largest petroleum distribution networks in Ireland,” he says.
“The company entered the marine market in the late 1930s, supplying brass bilge pumps to the Royal Navy as part of the war effort. With the growth of the leisure industry in the 1960s the business entered new market segments including the caravan market. Fast forward several years later and Whale is now one of the most well-known brands within the markets it serves.”
Whale was acquired by Brunswick Corporation in 2014, which has enabled further investment in product development, people and facilities. The brawn that acquisition brought has allowed the North Down company to collaborate with sister companies, “providing deeper insights and access to the latest technologies”.
Today the Whale facility consists of two sites with 8000 sq metres – W1 (offices and assembly) and W2 – (R&D and polymers). Patrick says a growth area for Whale is “the ever-growing ‘Van Life’ movement”.
He continues: “Since the beginning of the pandemic, foreign travel has taken a step back as more and more people go on staycations. This trend seems to be here to stay, with increasing numbers of van conversion businesses popping up and high numbers of people buying vans and converting them into campervans themselves.
“During 2019, we created a website specifically targeting van converters (www.whalevanlife.com) to help users on their build journey and highlight why our products should be used. Products such as our underfloor space heater, Heat Air, or water heating system, Expanse, are the perfect heating solutions for these vehicles.”
He adds the healthcare market has presented even more opportunities for the business including pumped shower drainage solutions for the removal of waste water in level access shower adaptations where gravity is not an option.
“Due to the aging demographic, we expect to see an increase in the number of level access shower adaptations being undertaken, as these ultimately give the end user more independence.”
The business is split between three key regions: UK 55%, Europe 35% and North America 10%.
Speaking about the benefits of being a North Down-based business, Patrick says “access to an engaged, committed, educated workforce” is one of the biggest geographical assets.
He adds: “In return Whale is committed to providing stable, secure and rewarding employment. Bangor and North Down in general is also a great place to live in terms of the coastline, local amenities and the proximity to Belfast and travel connections.”
Creating sparks in the electrical world is Kane Engineering in Newtownards. The manufacturer of low voltage electrical switchgear recently celebrated 50 years in business.
Director Damien Kane says the firm has completed more than 6,000 switchgear projects in its lifetime, with its work behind the scenes of virtually every corporate and commercial entity.
Among its recent works are Titanic Belfast; Belfast Metropolitan College; Queen’s University Belfast; the new Ulster University campus; the National Portrait Gallery, London; and The Emory hotel, London.
Teleperformance, Bangor.
electrical contractors who install our products as part of their electrical installations, but our products are to be found in schools, hospitals, office buildings, supermarkets, factories, data centre & telecom installations, and all manner of commercial buildings.”
The future for the company looks just as active and as new buildings seek more energy-efficient solutions, Kane anticipates playing a major role “through optimisation of design, and smart metering and monitoring of electrical services in the building”.
Damien adds: “The company continues to pursue a steady growth plan, expanding our sales with key accounts throughout the UK and Ireland. Staff numbers will reach 40 by the end of 2022.”
One of North Down’s most high-profile businesses is the 50-year-old Denroy empire. The company, which started out as Denroy Plastics, has evolved to become an integral supplier to many global industries including aviation, automotive and hair and beauty. It has 400 staff across the group, including at its offices in the USA and London.
The company’s separate Denman hair product range has become something of an icon with hair industry specialists.
CEO Kevin McNamee explains: “The company manufactures for the aerospace, automotive and medical sectors as well as producing the Denman hairbrush range. Every Airbus aircraft in the world has components inside the wings and body that were made at Denroy.
“The Denman brand is now over 80 years old and the range of brushes and combs is exported to over 70 countries around the world and has never been more popular.”
He says that range continues on a “digital journey” gaining more and more exposure through social media, including TikTok where it has had more than 360m views while its Amazon presence has superseded sales anywhere else.
Denpro, he says, was created during the pandemic and now the products are sold throughout the healthcare sector, with the Denpro FFP3 mask now the most widely used in the NHS in Northern Ireland.
“Denpro continues to develop new products and open new markets for existing products. Distributors are being established in the main European countries and we will be bringing to market other products including an FFP2 variant of the mask and medical-grade eyewear protection which is currently under CE mark testing,” Kevin says.
He adds: “Denroy continues to invest in research and development in collaboration with key partners in the aerospace sector including Airbus and Spirit. This will not only lead to the manufacture of components under contract relating to this R&D, but will also lead to further opportunity through the technology being developed. The company is currently leading a major aerospace R&D project which is supported by £2m of Innovate UK funding.”
R&D is high up the agenda at Denroy, where planning permission has been approved for expansion at its Balloo site. Kevin says engineering and plastic injection moulding is the firm’s “key competence”.
“The Group is currently investing £10m in two new buildings at our two main sites in Bangor as well as additional manufacturing equipment to increase our capability and capacity. We anticipate significant growth across our sectors in the years ahead and this investment plan will position us fully to deliver upon this strategy.”
For four decades Dundonald-based Sepha has worked with the world’s top pharmaceutical companies on implementing quality control solutions in R&D and production departments.
Its range of products enables the pharmaceutical and medical device industries to accurately detect leaks in packaging, recover high-value products from rejected blister packs and create high-quality blister packs and medical device packaging.
Paul Smith, managing director of the company, says the company has grown from a small factory setup to an exporter of ‘off-the-shelf’ machines and custom products going to 75 different countries.
He says: “Additional to our Dundonald HQ we now have technical and commercial offices located in Michigan, USA and Pune, India.”
He says the pandemic brought an upturn and continues to do so with “a high demand for non-destructive test and inspection solutions for vaccine containers.”
Paul adds: “Also, to ensure vaccine and drug supplies remain accessible to as many people as possible, pharma companies are utilising Sepha technologies to increase their production yields.”
Today the company is welcoming back its global customer base, sometimes in person, at its HQ in Carrowreagh Hills, with guests from Singapore to Australia and Germany travelling over.
“Being situated in the North Down area provides excellent access to Belfast City Airport, the city centre, high-quality restaurants and hotels. This ease of transport and level of hospitality has enabled Sepha to forge strong business relationships with many key customers and suppliers. So it is fair to say we are an advocate of being situated in the North Down Area,” adds Paul.
Looking ahead he anticipates a positive industry with regulatory bodies such as the FDA, not only approving, but creating regulations where Sepha’s technologies must be used as part of the pharmaceutical production process.
“Also, we see a trend within pharma where more factories are becoming automated and digitised (Industry 4.0) and we are differentiating ourselves from competition by investing in Sepha’s products to integrate and form part of the latest pharma production networks and processes.”
In the telemarketing sector, Teleperformance in Bangor has been servicing some of the UK’s biggest brands with front-office customer support, backoffice services including finance as well as tech support.
Hilary Stewart, service delivery director at the business, says the Bangor site, which is one of three here, opened in 1989.
There, the team services banking, insurance, retail, utilities, travel, government and many other sectors.
She says: “Teleperformance currently has 9,000 people in the UK and 420,000 worldwide. In the UK, it has grown significantly in the past two years.
The pandemic resulted in us moving to work from home for the majority of our teams and we continue to offer a blend of in-office, work-from-home and hybrid roles.”
Hilary says having a base in Bangor allows it to benefit from an “extremely high level of education in the area, excellent road and rail links to Belfast and Dublin, a very tenured, experienced management team” as well as “loyal, dedicated, high-quality agents who are experienced in customer service across a number of channels”.
The latter businesses are just a small selection of the industries thriving in the Ards and North Down district. According to a recent Invest NI council briefing, the area is rich in financial, professional and business services which is its strongest sector (36%), followed by engineering and manufacturing (28%) and agri-food (18%) but there are also construction, leisure and tourism and life and health science businesses making waves with the digital and creative industries growing an occupying 11% of the area’s industry setup.
