A MOTOR company that helps car manufacturers to speed up design times hopes to raise £6 million on the Alternative Investment Market when it floats next month.
Concept Group, which is chaired by Ken Giles, the former managing director of Aston Martin, has helped to reduce by about a quarter the time that it takes for new vehicles to be transformed from ideas into prototypes.
The Coventry-based company has bucked the general downturn in the vehicle manufacturing sector by employing advanced design and manufacturing processes to speed up the normal, frustratingly long design processes. The group has counted General Motors, Jaguar, Nissan and Ford among its clients.
It will use the money to expand into new markets. At present the bulk of its work is in Western Europe and the United States. It is seeking to cash in on the strong demand from emerging markets such as India, where already it works with Tata Motors, India’s biggest carmaker, and Russia. It also plans to sell its services to other areas of the transport industry, including the rail, maritime and aviation sectors.
Prototypes that Concept has produced so far include the Cadillac Cien, which won the car of the year award at the Detroit motor show in 2002, and the GM Graphyte.
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Joe Molloy, chief executive of Concept, founded the group four years ago. Previously he had worked at companies including General Motors and with various Formula One motor racing teams.
He said: “The economic conditions within the transport industry are causing vehicle manufacturers to look for ways to design faster, smarter and more economically at a time when demand from consumers for new models is increasing.”
The company, which is being advised by Collins Stewart, has two production facilities in Coventry, one of which it runs in partnership with GM Motors.