Any business that trades online could argue it also trades world-wide, but there are some in Gloucestershire that can truly lay claim to being global firms with offices, manufacturing plants and operations in multiple countries.
From a fashion house, ingenious engineering firms and aerospace
operators par excellence to health care businesses, a manufacturer of famous soft
drinks to a performance car parts specialist, the county has plenty of
surprises and proof that from Gloucestershire, it is possible to run any size of empire.
Superdry plc
If you sport the fashionable Superdry brand, have never
checked the label and assumed the once highly visible Japanese writing on its
clothes meant it was from the Far East, think again. Cheltenham-born
and bred, this business makes its items abroad and distributes them world-wide. Currently subject to speculation about its future as a listed business, there's talk co-founder Julian Dunkerton is mulling over a potential buy-out.
Renishaw
Renishaw excels at what it does and is simply awe-inspiring. Famously growing from one man’s idea of how to speedily measure components in precise detail, it now leads markets in medical science, 3D printing, and has bases in countries from Austria to Australia, Turkey to Thailand, South Korea to Brazil and Taiwan to Vietnam. The Wotton-under-Edge headquartered business, employs 2,600 staff in Gloucestershire and is committed to training apprentices and graduates.
Spirax Sarco
When it comes to being able to baffle with sheer mind-boggling achievements in the world of engineering, Spirax Sarco has
quite a hand to play. As well as being one of Gloucestershire's biggest employers, it is also a world leader in what it calls 'steam engineering', with bases in India and the United States of America and a
turnover estimated at £1,344 million. It employs an estimated 1,000 staff in the county and 7,900 staff globally.
GE Aviation
An engineering and aerospace firm of quite simply enormous scale, scope and ability, American-owned GE Aviation has been a permanent fixture in Bishop's Cleeve, north of Cheltenham, for sometime. It has an estimated 1,600 staff here and bases across the United States of America. Formerly known as Smiths Aerospace, General Electric Aircraft Engines (GEAE), or GE Aerospace, it is a leading manufacturer and service provider of jet engines.
Safran
Safran Landing Systems’ proud boast is that if you have flown on a large passenger plane, the chances are that the landing gear was made by its skilled staff. It also has its MRO site here at Staverton, dedicated to the maintenance, repair and overhaul of landing gears and associated components for civil, military and helicopter aircraft. The French firm has plants in 276
locations in 27 countries employing 95,000
people.
Raytheon UK
The opening of its Gloucestershire base in February 2015 was a £3 million investment creating 100 jobs. A show of how seriously the Government took the America firm’s official arrival in the UK was underlined by the presence of then Trade and Investment Minister Lord Livingston. Since opening its cyber innovation centre at Barnwood, just down the road from GCHQ, the business has become an integral part of the county’s growing cyber community and remains a major player in the global defence market.
Moog
Engineering giant Moog serves markets as diverse as aerospace, motorsports like F1, racing yachts, defence, industrial machinery, marine and oil and gas. The American-headquartered firm has an estimated 13,000 employees globally, and 400 in Tewkesbury. It trains its Gloucestershire apprentice engineers at GET (Gloucestershire Engineering Training) and is currently investing £40 million-plus on a new facility at Ashchurch.
Prima Dental
Gloucester-headquartered Prima Dental is a leading manufacturer of dental burs for sale globally and the firm, growing at a
rate of 20 per cent a year, just announced a further £7 million investment in its
Quedgeley base. It has subsidiaries in India and joint venture partnerships in
Brazil and Hong Kong and China and produces 50 million burs annually.
Suntory Beverage & Food GB&I
The soft drinks manufacturer of Lucozade and Ribena, which employs 330 staff at its Gloucestershire factory, recovered well from the pandemic with revenue up from £385.2 million in 2020 to £445 million in 2021. Operating profit for its Lucozade business rose from £77.2 million in 2020 to £89 million. The family-owned firm is worth $20 billion and listed on the Japan Stock Market.
Forge Motorsport
Anyone watching the main road for fast-travelling firms should keep a watch out for Gloucester-based performance car parts maker Forge, whose products have become a hit world-wide. It now has a base in Orlando USA and distributes to countries including Australia, China, Dubai, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan. The inventive engineering-driven firm is as at home adding horsepower to a brand new £100,000-plus vehicle as it is to a modified VW Golf.
Corin
Cotswold-based Corin is a market-leader in the world of orthopaedics, or joint replacements. Its products for the hip, knee, ankle and
shoulder are sold world-wide and the Cirencester-headquartered
business has offices in Australia, Europe, Japan and the United States. Now also a technology business, it uses artificial intelligence to help build better predictive outcomes for patients and continually pushes for improvements in its already world-leading products.
Trelleborg Sealing Solutions
Tewkesbury-based Trelleborg Sealing Solutions is part of Trelleborg Group, and one of the prime European production and development facilities for elastomer products for the aerospace and niche industrial markets. In total, the Swedish-owned group has 6,900 staff, 32 manufacturing plants world-wide, and nine research and development centres in Europe and America.
