26.11.14
Unipart and Lucchini UK form £60m joint venture business
Unipart’s wheelset and bogie overhaul business and Lucchini’s two UK sites in Manchester are merging their activities in a new joint venture that will have an annual turnover of about £60m, employing 300 people.
Both of Lucchini UK's sites and Unipart Group’s Doncaster site will remain open, with “the employees of both businesses will benefit from greater opportunities within the enlarged and strengthened entity”.
The HQ of LUR Ltd will be in Trafford Park, Manchester, and it will be led by the current MD of Lucchini UK, Chris Fawdry. It will start operating from 2 February 2015.
The two companies said the JV will give “complete control over the supply chain of the safety-critical components that make up a traction system: wheel, axle, wheelset and bogie, from the manufacture of the steel to the delivery of the bogie to a customer’s depot; effectively, ‘From Furnace to Fleet’".
It will create a “dedicated and experienced team” with a total focus on wheels, wheelsets and bogies by one dedicated and experienced team, with technical and commercial solutions based on life cycle cost studies and innovation.
John Clayton, director of the Unipart Group, said: “We have no doubt that this joint venture with Lucchini will provide even more benefits for the UK traction & rolling stock sector.”
Augusto Mensi, CEO of Lucchini RS Group, said: “Through LUR our focus on product quality, service and innovation in the UK market will extend to the whole traction system.”
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