History
The company has been a leader in the design and manufacture of high pressure seamless steel gas cylinders for over 100 years. Its origins trace back to The Universal Weldless Steel Tube Company Limited, which was formed in London in 1897 and later acquired in 1906 by Chesterfield Tube Company Limited.
Since then, the business has undergone a number of changes of corporate ownership, including a period of continuous technical development throughout most of the 20th century as a member company of the blue-chip Tube Investments (later TI) Group. EuroCylinder Systems Gmbh ("ECS") acquired the business in 2001, trading as Chesterfield Cylinders Limited. That business comprised two divisions; a high volume, low margin manufacturing division of standard industrial gas cylinders and a speciality manufacturing division.
Before the lease at the Chesterfield (Derbyshire) site expired in 2004, ECS sold the capital equipment for the high volume division overseas. The specialised cylinders business was acquired by a management buyout team led by John Hayward, the Chief Executive, and backed by South Yorkshire Investment Capital Fund and Yorkshire & Humber Equity Fund.
The speciality cylinders business, renamed Chesterfield Special Cylinders Limited ("CSC"), was relocated to a 100,000 sq ft factory on 4.4 acres adjacent to the M1 at Sheffield. The move was completed in 2005 at a cost of around £1.5 million. The CSC business was re-engineered by John and his team on the new site with a more efficient plant layout, increasing productivity, and much improved production capacity. This re-engineering enabled the significant growth which was generated in the period from 2005 to 2008.
Pressure Technologies was established as the new holding company before the Group's successful flotation on AIM in June 2007.
In the 100 years since the business was founded, the name Chesterfield has become globally synonymous, in relevant markets, with seamless cylinder design and manufacture.
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16:02 09/03/2010
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