Liberty House snaps up Jaguar supplier CovPress

Industrial group Liberty House has bought manufacturer CovPress, which has been in administration since last autumn, securing 740 skilled jobs at the company’s Coventry-based site.

CovPress is a strong strategic fit with the group’s presence in the automotive supply chain, the company said. Liberty Industries Group, part of Liberty House Group, already has 17 engineering businesses employing over 1,000 people across the West Midlands.

CovPress, a professional metal stamping and robotic assembly specialist, is a Tier 1 supplier to Jaguar Land Rover, Renault and GM. Liberty Industries already supplies a range of components to JLR, Nissan and BMW.

The group, whose strategy is to create a fully-integrated UK industrial supply chain from raw metal production through to highly-engineered products, has been on an acquisition spree. It recently bought the UK’s only aluminium smelter at Fort William and plans for auto-component manufacturing there as part of a £450m industrial and energy investment in the Scottish Highlands.

Douglas Dawson, Liberty Industries Group CEO, said: “We are very familiar with the high quality of the operation at Covpress and the skills and equipment in the business. As such we are extremely pleased they are becoming part of the Liberty Industries Group.”

Joint administrator, Eddie Williams of Grant Thornton, said: “CovPress is a fundamentally strong business. After an extensive sale process which involved significant expressions of interest, I am delighted to have concluded a sale which provides the workforce with some good news in early 2017.

“The successful sale to Liberty not only provides a secure future for this pivotal Midlands engineering enterprise but means the administrators should also have funds available to distribute to creditors.”