Leading UK lift manufacturer The Britannic Lift Company has underlined recent rapid expansion, business gains and increasing profits by investing £750,000 in a modern new head office, warehouse and factory in Keighley.

Relocation from Cullingworth to the new Bradford Road premises will benefit the local economy. Within 12 months the company expects to increase its current 76-strong workforce by 25 per cent with up to 20 new jobs, making it one of the area's major employers.

The new site also has potential for further expansion to underpin future growth opportunities and the challenges of the new millennium.

At the same time, reorganisation of the business has brought a number of group companies -Yorkshire Lifts, Ellison and Pennine Lifts & Cranes, Kent Lift Company, Pennine Electrical Engineering and FM Bell Lifts, of Manchester - under the Britannic Lift Company banner.

Britannic Lifts chairman David Mansfield says: "The company has made substantial progress over the past 12 months, resulting in increased sales and enhanced pre-tax profits. Strong sales increases were shown across all divisions, and further acquisitions will assure future growth beyond the year 2000.

"The amalgamation of our various companies has been successfully implemented, and all administrative operations efficiently integrated. These changes, along with our new head office, represent the cornerstone of the company's future growth and prosperity. They will ensure that we enhance our position as a major player within the UK lift industry."

Britannic's origins stretch back over four generations to 1911, when the firm first started designing and manufacturing cranes and lifting apparatus. Product ranges diversified during the 1960s and 70s, and the company moved into the manufacture of goods and passenger lifts.

Throughout the 1980s further new products such as stairlifts, scissor lifts and dock levellers were introduced, followed by expansion into the mobility products market.

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