Covpress International Ltd

Covpress supplies steel pressings of bodywork components to automotive OEMs from a state-of-the-art facility in Coventry.

The company has a proud manufacturing facility going back over a century and became part of the GIL Investments portfolio in 2004. Under the leadership of Mike Gillett the company went from strength to strength, re-investing profits and weathering the global slowdown in 2008/09. It was sold in 2013 to a large overseas group.

A Covpress subsidiary, NCJ Pressings Ltd, was part of the original Grove Industries/Anglo Engineering group in 1991. It operated from the same site and supplies pressed and fabricated components, mainly to the non-automotive market after NCJ was merged with Covpress in 2004.

A unique blend of engineering and manufacturing disciplines underpins Covpress’s status as a world-class tier one automotive supplier, as well as having the flexibility to offer excellent service at second tier level and having a diversifying amount of non-automotive work.

When it was acquired Covpress had a final salary pension scheme which the company paid into throughout the time of GIL’s ownership.

Having been a GIL portfolio business for nearly a decade, Covpress management and shareholders were approached by a local MBI team backed by a large Chinese group and ultimately the business was sold in July 2013.