News: Record growth continues at AESSEAL

Leading Rotherham manufacturer, AESSEAL has promoted two of their current directors as they continue to set new records for sales.

International sales director, Richard Pickles was hired in 2008 to drive global sales expansion and Stephen Shaw was hired as engineering director to reinforce the already strong engineering and technical "DNA" of the world's fourth largest mechanical seal business.

Two years later, 2010 saw the 28th year of uninterrupted sales and profit growth and AESSEAL reached a landmark by passing the £100m mark for sales, the first time that the sum has been reached in a calendar year in the history of the company.

Now the Templeborough firm has installed Stephen Shaw as chairman of AESSEAL plc and Richard Pickles as CEO of AESSEAL International, and the growth shows no sign of slowing down.

Stephen Shaw, chairman of AESSEAL plc explains: "Historically March has often been the best trading month of the year for the business so we were all extremely hopeful that we might hit the magic £10m sales number in March 2011.

"For the whole month we had an enormous order input. By the end of the month we had not achieved the £10m milestone. We went straight through it and had a massive (and record) sales month of £11.5m."

Chris Rea, founder and group managing director at AESSEAL added: "AESSEAL has never participated in any recession and we felt 2008 was the time to commit to the acceleration of our global sales activity. We knew we had to strengthen the executive management to do this.

"We took a decision in the dark days of 2008 to build a management team for the size and shape of the AESSEAL Group we were planning for 2010 and beyond.

"We are now looking at the next phase of growth. I am delighted to announce that we have promoted Richard Pickles to CEO of AESSEAL International, a business unit with an estimated £86m of our projected £120m sales total for 2011.

"The success of a business is about the strength of its people and the team they form at all levels in the organisation. As a result of record growth in 2010, which continues in 2011, we have recruited an additional 70 people in the UK."

At the Rotherham Means Business event in March, Gordon Bridge, director at AESSEAL, explained how the company had set a target of achieving £200m in sales in 2015 and to be number one in the world in 2029.

AESSEAL website

Images: aesseal.co.uk