Venture Fund Portfolio
Aerogistics
The Company
Aerogistics provides supply chain management and surface treatments to the aerospace industry and has a customer base that includes industry giants GE Aviation, Airbus, Boeing and Rolls Royce.
The company was formed in 2003 and in 2005 acquired King and Fowler, a 120 year old Liverpool aerospace manufacturing business which specialises in surface treatment and inspection processes. This acquisition enabled Aerogistics to provide customers with a full low cost service and also strengthened the Aerogistics brand within the sector.
Aerogistics also recently opened a new facility in Poland, King and Fowler Polska, which acts as a logistics and project management hub for its Eastern European supply chain.
The Investment
MSIF’s investment totalled £1.4m and the deal was led by Matt Allen and assisted by Tim Scott.
The funding will be used to provide a partial exit to two non-active shareholders and support the expansion of Aerogistics Liverpool headquarters.
MSIF’s investment is in addition to ongoing support from Barclays and grant funding of £1m from the NWDA in April last year and £300k from Business Liverpool. Part of this funding will be used to help the company relocate to state-of-the art premises as part of its future expansion plans.
The Outcome
Tom Dawes, Managing Director of Aerogistics said: “The investment means we can strengthen the management team and gives us the working capital to significantly develop the company. We will considerably grow the breadth and depth of expertise at our Liverpool headquarters by teaming up with knowledge based partners and investing in new value-adding technologies.
“We now want to build Aerogistics into a global market leader and put Liverpool on the map in this industry. In addition to our growth in Liverpool we also want to build on the successful introduction of our Polish operation, the only independent aerospace treatment facility in Eastern Europe, and replicate this in India and Mexico which will enable us to penetrate new markets abroad.”
