NEWS
ROGER REIGNITES HIS INTEREST IN FIRE FIRM
Wed 18th November 2009
The founder of a global fire extinguishing business has bought back part of the operation he set up 40 years ago.Entrepreneur Roger Carr retired from UK Fire International more than two years ago, but has stepped back into the fray by acquiring the manufacturing arm of business and factory at...
The founder of a global fire extinguishing business has bought back part of the operation he set up 40 years ago.
Entrepreneur Roger Carr retired from UK Fire International more than two years ago, but has stepped back into the fray by acquiring the manufacturing arm of business and factory at Ashwellthorpe, which will trade under the Britannia Fire banner.
The manufacturing operation was not included in the £12m acquisition of UK Fire International by FTSE 250 listed Connaught Group in July.
The new Britannia Fire business has 36 employees and a turnover of about £2.5m and will produce extinguishers chiefly for use in the offshore energy and petro-chemical industries and commercial shipping.
Mr Carr said “we have done a lot of work in the past four weeks and we have got a new product being developed and are building our export market.” Mr Carr said about 70% of the firm’s products are exported to countries including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Hong Kong and Singapore.
While the firm’s largest extinguisher is a 135litre foam unit – of which about 2500 are produced per year – the smallest is an aerosol, of which about 100,000 are produced annually.
About 20pc of turnover is to retail outlets, 60pc to the energy sector in the North Sea and shipping ad the remainder is to petrochemical firms.
He launched UK Fire in 1968 in his early 20s after a stint working in a lace factory in the north of England. Mr Carr serviced fire extinguishers, but realised the old method of lifting lever and hitting a button on an extinguisher could be improved inventing and patenting the control valve, which involves pulling out a pin and squeezing two levers. Branded the Norfolk range, Mr Carr’s new type of extinguisher was launched in 1970 and was followed by the “Britannia” range, which used zinc alloy, in 1986. “I could see the future in proving fire fighting equipment,” he said “legislation was changing towards it being compulsory. I got training and started my own business. The Britannia range is still running today and it is very successful.”
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