Circatex celebrates one year in business

There has been a 70% increase in the number of production workers on the payroll. Redundant machinery has been disposed of and the plant is being progressively re-equipped. “We effectively have no borrowings, and we have financed our investments out of cash flow”, Chairman Steve Jones (picture) explains. “January was our only bad month in a year’s trading; every other month we have been well loaded, and showing a solid profit. Our Fastrax quick-turn business has grown rapidly during the last six months, and we anticipate similar growth in our Advanced Materials Technology division” said Steve Jones. A disturbing measure of the overall change in volume of PCB manufacturing activity in the UK over the last five years is that the South Shields plant, presently running at about 20% of its original design capacity, consumes one third of all the laminate used in the UK. Whereas Isola’s Cumbernauld plant had to run flat out and delivered two articulated truck-loads of laminate to South Shields every day, there is now no domestic laminate manufacture in the UK.