Engineering news
The Regional Growth Fund enables businesses to access a grant to support business investment.
The Regional Growth Fund (RGF) has already proved a valuable tool for winning new contracts for many businesses in the engineering sector. Despite this success Steve Gee, Managing Director of Close Brothers Asset Finance, Manufacturing Division still feels there are many SMEs that could take advantage of this government initiative.
Investing in growth and people
The RGF is a £3.2 billion fund from the government aimed at SMEs. Close Brothers Asset Finance has been awarded a total of £70 million and to date Close Brothers has awarded grants to over 450 SMEs.
In the last 18 months this equates to over £115 million of investment in new equipment and technology, creating over 1,500 jobs and safeguarding a further 900. All this investment has taken place in the SME market.
Eligibility for the RGF
The size of the grant available is based on the level of proposed investment, the size and location of the business, and finally the number of sustainable full time posts being created or safeguarded. For every job created or safeguarded a grant of up to £10,000 is available - up to a maximum of 20% of the proposed investment amount.
For example, a business looking to invest, say, £150,000 +VAT in a new machine could benefit from a grant of up to £30,000 (20% of the proposed investment value) by creating and/or safeguarding three jobs.
Case Study – Micron Workholding Ltd
Company profile
Micron Workholding Ltd is a family owned and run precision engineering business based in Cambridgeshire. As well as general subcontracting, the company also manufactures its own product, MicroLoc, which is a work holding used on the CNC milling machines.
Business challenge
Micron Workholding has a good reputation for quality milling work, particularly in the motorsport sector. The company was recently awarded a five-year contract with a significant tier one supplier into the motorsports sector.
Micron has been tasked to undertake all of the machining work and in order to fulfill this contract, they required a new multi pallet-machining centre as their existing machinery had neither the capability nor the efficiency to cope with this.
Micron also recognised that they would need an additional member of staff to service the contract.
Solution
We worked with Managing Director, Matthew Jenness, to put together a sound application for a grant from the Regional Growth Fund (RGF) to purchase the new equipment.
They were successful in securing £30,000 from the RGF, which could be used towards the deposit for a Hire Purchase agreement.
Result
Micron was able to purchase the piece of machinery that was specifically ideal for high precision batch work, replacing three smaller machines that were unsuitable for the new contract, thus increasing efficiency.
With the assistance of Close Brothers and the RGF, the company was able to safeguard two existing roles and create a new position for an apprentice.
“Close Brothers are great to deal with. They assisted us through the RGF application, which has resulted in us being able to buy the machinery needed to support our business growth.” Matthew Jenness
The investment has had such a positive effect on the business that it’s now considering extending the factory to facilitate further expansion.
Click here for more information about how your business could benefit from a Regional Growth Fund grant.