SIXH.L Regulatory News (SIXH)

The 600 Group PLC

 6 March 2013

£600,000 factory investment at 600 UK

600 UK announces a major £600,000 investment in their manufacturing facility based in Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire.

The home of Colchester and Harrison manual and CNC lathes, Pratt Burnerd International Workholding Chucks and Gamet Bearings is radically redeveloping its current site layout to significantly improve manufacturing and sales operations to bring additional benefits to customers.

The new reorganised and refurbished 75,000 ft2 facility will adopt a Kanban style production process for both factory built and sourced products, which includes manual centre, Alpha manual/CNC and Tornado CNC lathes, alongside Pratt Burnerd International's workholding products. Additionally, new Tornado assembly bays will be introduced to the facility to accomodate the increased demand for the new Colchester Tornado range.

The new site will house a dedicated customer showroom, exhibiting the full range of 600 UK products and will be complemented by the installation of new offices for all 600 UK sales, support and head office staff. It is anticipated that the new site will be completed during Mid 2013, when customers and distributors will be invited to attend an open house event, which will be confirmed shortly.

These site advancements will enable 600 UK to provide a significantly increased finished stock for machine tools, machine tools spares and chucking products, particularly for Pratt Burnerd International, meaning that extra stockholding will be extended to their full manual and power chuck ranges.

The Heckmondwike facility was subject to a sale and partial leaseback transaction yielding net proceeds of £1.1 million, announced on 2 January 2013. The current investment of £600,000 will be funded by the purchaser in addition to the net proceeds as part of this transaction.

"These are exciting times for everyone at 600 UK," says Mike Berry, 600 UK's Managing Director, "we have a proud heritage, strong brand reputation and a very capable workforce. We intend to build on our success by providing a working environment that will facilitate more efficient production lead times and further improvements to product quality, as part of our ongoing commitment to continuous improvement".

Mike continued "Enquiries from distributors and end users for all Colchester, Harrison, Pratt Burnerd International and Gamet's products have increased significantly and this further investment in our UK facility is needed to meet the expected growing future demand from our worldwide customer base.

-ENDS-

More Information on the 600 Group can be viewed at: www.600group.com

Note to Editors

The 600 Group PLC ("the Group") is a diversified engineering group with three principal areas of activity:

Machine Tools - the business has a strong reputation in the market for metal turning machines. Products range from small conventional machines for education markets, CNC workshop machines and CNC production machines. The manufacturing footprint is supported by selected outsourcing partners and machines are marketed through the Group's wholly owned international sales organisation.

Precision Engineered Components - machine spares are distributed to customers globally to help maintain the installed base of group machines which number in excess of 100,000. Additionally work holding products and taper roller bearings are sold via specialist distributors to OEMs including other machine builders.

Laser Marking - laser marking is a technologically superior alternative to inkjet marking. It requires no consumables and can operate on a continuous high speed basis when integrated into customers' production lines. The business has its own technology and proprietary software. Customer applications are diverse and range from telecommunications to pharmaceuticals. The requirement for increased product and component traceability is one of the market drivers.