CHESTERFIELD’S ALTEK TO REDEFINE GLOBAL ALUMINIUM RECYCLING FOLLOWING FUNDING FROM SANTANDER

Added by Love Business East Midlands | 8 November 2017

Chesterfield-based ALTEK Europe Ltd (“ALTEK”), a specialist designer and manufacturer of equipment used for the efficient recycling of aluminium and aluminium waste material, is set to commercialise its latest innovative technology, ALUSALT™ after receiving a £2.65 million funding package from Santander Corporate & Commercial. The funding from Santander includes £500,000 in specialist Growth Capital, which is aimed at the UK’s fast-growth, most successful businesses.

ALTEK is a market-leading manufacturer of several innovative technologies, including the dross press technology in which it is a world leader with over 550 units globally. This takes “dross”, a waste by-product from the aluminium smelting process, and presses it to immediately recover further aluminium while also capturing recoverable value (aluminium) for sale or re-processing.

The firm lists many of the world’s largest multi-site aluminium manufacturers as long-standing customers, including Hydro, Alcoa, Novelis, Arconic, Constellium, EGA, Rio Tinto, RUSAL and REAL ALLOY. ALTEK has over 500 global customers and exports to countries all over the world. Its top five markets are Europe, the USA, the Middle East, China and South East Asia.

The £2.65 million funding package from Santander Corporate & Commercial will support the commercialisation of ALUSALT™ across Europe with significant export opportunities for ALTEK. This is an innovative process that enables the local treatment of salt slag, a by-product of aluminium re-cycling, which will provide many financial efficiency benefits to aluminium recyclers and reduce the significant transportation, environmental and CO2, impact of shipping many hundreds of thousands of tonnes of this material across Europe to a small number of specialist recycling facilities.

While a major development for the industry and also ALTEK, ALUSALT™ is only one of several new innovations from the firm. ALTEK has a very aggressive innovation strategy and regularly receives grant support from European Union research and development programmes and Innovate UK, the government-run innovation agency.

Santander’s Growth Capital loans are targeted at UK businesses with annual turnovers of up to £50 million which have a demonstrated history of high year-on-year growth in turnover, profit or employment. As well as the financial support, high-growth businesses can also access other support from Santander which includes training (masterclasses), mentoring and seminars as well as access to overseas trade missions and part-funded interns through our partner universities.

Alan Peel, Managing Director, ALTEK Europe Ltd, said: “We’ve been leading the way with new technologies for the aluminium manufacturing sector for decades and are excited that we can now start to commercialise our latest innovation, the ALUSALT™ technology. With increased focus on CO2 minimisation and the development of closed loop recycling technologies to eliminate waste and landfill, we are hopeful that this process will not only have a beneficial environmental impact globally but will also save our customers significant operating costs.”

Liz Pickering, Relationship Director, Santander Corporate & Commercial said: “The team at ALTEK have used technology to evolve and become a world leader in the design, manufacture and installation of aluminium recycling systems. We are confident that ALUSALT™ will further increase its market share and look forward to working with it on future growth plans.”

The information contained in this press release is intended solely for journalists and should not be used by consumers to make financial decisions.

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