Sandwell foundry Westley Group is set to invest in new strategic machinery with an eight-figure funding package from HSBC UK.

Westley Group is one of Europe’s largest privately-owned foundry and engineering groups. It is a world expert in heat, wear and corrosion resistant alloys for a wide range of strategic equipment and safety critical applications. 

The Cradley Heath-headquartered company services a range of industries including defence, marine, aerospace, oil and gas, architecture and general engineering. One of its key markets is the UK’s surface and sub-surface strategic naval defence market.

The company’s aim is to add further value to its foundry activities through machining more of the castings that it produces in Sandwell for its worldwide customer base. Westley Group is a trusted partner for high integrity castings and tight tolerance machining delivered from a unique, vertically integrated manufacturing platform.

In addition, the financing allows Westley Group to grow further into existing and emerging markets for its highly specified and safety critical applications. This will create several opportunities for new technical positions in skilled machining operations to become available across its four manufacturing sites.

Westley Group already employs 280 people across its four locations and the company was recognised as one of the UK’s top 200 private companies with fastest-growing international sales in the 2021 Sunday Times HSBC International Track 200.

James Salisbury, CEO at Westley Group, said: “This agreement with HSBC UK allows us to expand our services by investing in new machinery and upgrading our facilities to grow the Group’s offering to our customer base – it gets us even closer to our customer and their own finished product.

“The products we produce are subject to some of the world’s most stringent testing criteria. They are also incredibly complicated from a metallurgical and geometrical perspective. Our customers rely more and more on our expertise to deliver a finished product including all testing and certification”.

Keith Webb, Deputy Regional Director and Head of Manufacturing for the Midlands at HSBC UK, said: “Westley Group has a clear commitment to manufacturing excellence and we look forward to further supporting the development of this well-established business that is a leader in its field, whilst helping to create new jobs within the UK and supporting its plans for business growth.”

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