2024 has been a landmark year for Belmar. Almost 50 years in business it has seen many changes, and has had to adapt to these, but none more so than the changes in 2024. Late in 2023, the owners of Belmar invited Mark Patterson to join the business as Interim Chairman and assess the future for the business. The previous 2 years had been particularly challenging and there was a very real chance that the business would go into liquidation. However, after reviewing the business and its clear strengths, and its customer bases, it was decided that a recovery programme was viable, but it would be a programme that would require speed and flexibility. Every aspect of the business was put under the microscope by Mark’s team from Mansefield Investments, and Mark immediately began conversations with existing clients. Thankfully, these clients believed in Belmar’s technical capability, acknowledged the over £1m investment in new machinery, and made a commitment to the new business model Belmar were offering. 9 months on and a huge amount of change to support the core values of Belmar, and the business is now in its strongest position in years and looking forward to continued investment in the latest machinery and technology.
To match this Belmar has reviewed the people resource it requires to Engineer for Excellence and the future and has invested in designing and Training and Competence system to drive and track the ongoing growth of the team, and to link this to reward and personal development and succession for the business. In addition, recognising that Belmar were growing a workforce for the future, a new apprentice pathway was also developed. The key aim behind this is for Belmar to go beyond compliance. Belmar are driving a culture where standards and attitudes are driven from every level of performance and embedded in the shop floor cultures. Quality, Safety, Risk Awareness, Continuous Improvement are at the core of all aspects of the product’s journey through Belmar to the client. Compliance with regulatory bodies and industry standards are not the goal, they are base line for Belmar.
Belmar want to position the business to address the fact that companies like Belmar who manufacture and have engineering excellence in a niche offering across the UK and in particular Scotland are disappearing very fast with the customer base, mainly due to commercial factors, choosing the far east as the place to go. This remains a huge concern for Belmar and as we drive forward, we will look very keenly at our strategic options and try and broaden our product offering. Whether this is done through strategic acquisitions or investing in modern state of the art machinery or both, we will off course continue to work with our clients to demonstrate the importance of local manufacture and service.
It is incredibly important to us that you are aware of our progress and how grateful we are to a loyal client base. The Management Team have worked tirelessly to make these changes possible and realise a vision for Belmar that was at times almost too much to hope for in the time available, but with tenacity and most of all an unwavering belief in the abilities of Belmar this has been achieved and is the foundations for a future of growth, development. and success. We hope you will come with us on our journey and look forward to 2025 with us.
Belmar’s main products are components for sub-sea systems, including as standard IE Lubricator Value, Accumulator Mandrels, Retainer Valves, Shear Subs, Subsea Test Trees, and THRT Adapters. We also produce components for Subsea Production Trees.
