Surface Transforms is a Liverpool city region manufacturer of carbon fibre brake discs for high performance cars and the company has secured a £100m contract. Tony McDonough reports

Carbon fibre brake disc manufacturer Surface Transforms (ST) has secured a new £100m contract taking its total order book up to £180m.

Knowsley-based ST, which is listed on the stock exchange’s Alternative Investment Market, says the new deal with an unnamed car maker replaces a £27.5m contract with the same customer it won in September 2020.

It extends the life of the contract to 2027 and it means ST will need to accelerate the recruitment of extra staff and invest in infrastructure upgrades to be able to handle the extra work.

Significantly increased demand for the particular model made by the customer has driven the decision to increase the value of its relationship with ST by £70m. In the year to December 2021 ST saw revenues grow 20% to £2.4m. It increased its workforce during the year by 60% to 80 people.

Even prior to this new contract, chairman David Bundred had said 2022 was set to be a “transformational” year for the company. This latest deal increases the firm’s sales forecast by £4m in 2023, £11m in both 2024 and 2025 and by £20m in both 2026 and 2027.

Chief executive Kevin Johnson said: “This important announcement maintains the recent momentum of significant commercial success for our brake discs. This success is of course being accompanied by our parallel focus on installing and commissioning the new plant to produce this huge increase in sales, a project that is continuing apace.

“We look forward to showing shareholders the progress on both contracts and production at our Capital Markets Day in April 2022.”

ST also revealed in December that it had drawn down a previously agreed £1m loan from the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority. This will be used to expand its production facilities and create new jobs. This year it estimates it will invest around £2.5m in new staff.

It is also currently supplying brake discs for the Aston Martin Valkyrie, a limited edition model that will cost buyers almost £3m. Other customers have included Porsche, Ferrari and Nissan.