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WEC Group buys UK subcontractor HTA Group to form £75m business

Welding, laser cutting and CNC machining company, WEC Group, has bought HTA Group, one of the UK's largest subcontract manufacturers. The combined business will have 800 employees and a projected turnover of £75 million.

Founded in 1973, HTA Group has a 130-strong workforce and a £10 million annual turnover. It supplies laser cut parts, sheet metal components and fabricated assemblies.

Last year HTA Group, which carries out robotic and manual welding and fabrication at its 90,000 sq ft factory in Coventry, UK, invested more than £2 million in automated laser profiling technology. The equipment was made up of two 5kW Trumpf TruLaser 5040 fibre laser cutting machines with BrightLine fibre technology and SortMaster part sorting automation.

The new deal means that the expanded WEC Group will have 23 laser cutting machines working across all its operations, including two tube machines that will allow HTA to offer 3D laser cutting to its customers for the first time.

In the past 12 months, WEC Group has invested around £11 million in new machinery and workspace, including £7 million on a new 300,000 sq ft factory in South Yorkshire.

WEC's robotic 7.2m x 640 tonne press also increases HTA's current capacity and adds waterjet and plasma cutting to the Midlands operation. On top of that HTA adds CNC punching to WEC Group's overall capabilities and allows it to offer that function to its existing and future customer base.

Wayne Wild, commercial director of the Lancashire-headquartered WEC Group, said: ‘HTA's partnership with WEC Group, will create a major new force in the UK's laser cutting and fabrication sector and allows both companies to offer more to our customers.

‘The expanded group makes us one of the largest laser cutting and fabrication operations in the UK. It means we can offer more services and skills to our customers.’

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