Exciting times lie ahead for Hartlepool firm

The Stadium Group today announced its full year results for 2016 and they show profit before tax was up 29% to £2.2m compared to £1.7m in 2015.

The order book showed a 36% growth which was underpinned by demand for Stadium’s technology products.

Bosses have described the Hartlepool plant, in Brenda Road, as integral to the overall success. It provides electronic technologies to markets including the industrial, marine, aviation, transport and communication sectors.

Chief executive Charlie Peppiatt said the last year saw a continuation of the shift to have more technology products manufactured from its three centres of excellence in Hartlepool, Southampton and Asia .

He said all three were “now well placed” to produce more technically challenging technology products.

Mr Peppiatt said there were opportunities in 2017 to continue the trend of acquiring businesses which strengthen Stadium’s position.

He added: “We remain committed to acquiring companies that bring a clear value proposition for the group, and we continue to seek potential targets that increase our exposure to high growth markets, increase our global reach and complement our existing technologies.

“The key focus for our team this year has been to ensure that we have in place the correct operating model that puts ‘the customer at the centre of our business’ through strategically located regional design centres, manufacturing

centres of excellence and regional fulfilment centres.”

He said the firm had an “accelerated growth” plan in place and the best indicator of how that was doing was the £59.8m of orders in 2016.

He said the record with a record end to the year was continuing into this year and he praised Stadium’s “enhanced offering” of technology products, and a quality team of talented design engineers, as “proving to be very attractive to our customer base.”

He added: “We remain confident that 2017 will be a year characterised by strong sales growth.”

Chairman Nick Brayshaw OBE said: “We are very excited about the prospects for the Group and believe that our operating model focused around strategically located regional design centres, manufacturing centres of excellence and regional fulfilment centres will allow us to deliver accelerated growth in 2017.

“Our order book at the year-end was at record levels, up 36% on the previous year end at £25.8m.

“Our offering of complementary electronic technologies and design-focused engineering expertise is proving very attractive to current, previous and new customers, and this growing demand gives us confidence in the outlook for 2017, which has started positively.”