Unipart

Unipart Group Limited

Type	Private
Industry	Logistics
Founded	1974
Founder	British Leyland
Headquarters	Cowley, Oxfordshire, England
Key people	John Neill John Egan
Products	Logisitics, supply chain, consultancy
Revenue	£747.7 million (2016)[1]
Net income	£28.3 million (2016)[1]
Number of employees	6,192 (2017)[2]
Parent	Independent Unipart Group (1987–present) British Leyland/Rover Group (1974–1987)
Divisions	Unipart Logistics Unipart Rail Unipart Manufacturing
Website	unipart.co.uk

Unipart Group is a multinational logistics, supply chain, manufacturing and consultancy company headquartered in Cowley, Oxfordshire, England. It has operations in Europe, North America, Australia and Japan and works across a variety of sectors that include automotive, retail, technology and rail.^[3]

Originally part of the state-owned conglomerate British Leyland (BL), Unipart was a distributor of service parts for BL (and later, Austin Rover) vehicles. It was demerged from BL in 1987 in a management buyout and is a partially employee-owned and is one of the largest privately owned companies in the UK.^[2] For the year ending 2016, the company had a turnover of £747.7 million.^[1]

History

Unipart House, Cowley. Headquarters of Unipart Group, and some subsidiaries.

Unipart as it operates its business today was formed in 1974 by John Egan. State-controlled British Leyland put him in charge of their Unipart parts and service division, let him make it independent and brand it Unipart. The use of the Unipart brand to market service parts for British Leyland vehicles was similar in concept to Ford's Motorcraft brand. The next year British Leyland was nationalised. Egan left in 1976 to join Massey Ferguson.^[4]

Then 29-year-old John Neill replaced Egan and he continued Egan's policy of providing the same logistical services to its parent's competitors as well as to British Leyland. In 1987, shortly after British Leyland had been re-privatised as the Rover Group, Neill led a management buyout of Unipart, in part financed by a wider employee buy-in. Unipart is now 70% owned by its workforce and pension fund, the other 30% is held by sympathetic institutions. After the buyout, Unipart's main business stream was in distribution and logistics, including the marketing and distribution of automotive products, but included two manufacturing sites.^[5] In 1988, the company secured a contract to produce parts for a car Honda was building at its Swindon manufacturing site.^[6]

In 1997, Unipart backed a management-led buyout team at the National Railway Supplies, a servicer and distributor of signaling and telecom equipment for the rail industry and acquired a minority shareholding in the newly privatised company.^[7] The company purchased 100 percent of the firm in 2001, along with its York, Brighton and Crewe locations.^[8]

Unipart purchased the Partco network which consisted of branches largely located on industrial estates providing parts into the automotive aftermarket in 1999.^[9] Partco was renamed Unipart Automotive.

In 2006, the company announced a 10-year deal with Vodafone, to operate it cell phone handset repair business.^[10]

In 2009, Unipart was chosen by Sky to operate its set-top box repair business, including logistics, recycling services, and fleet management.^[11]

In 2011, 51% of the Unipart Automotive parts business was sold to H2 Equity Partners. The remaining 49% of Unipart Automotive was retained by Unipart Group. A condition of the sale was that Unipart Group exercised no control over the business.^[12] Under its new ownership, Unipart Automotive was granted a restricted licence by Unipart Group to use the Unipart brand on a limited range of wholesale outlets and a tightly controlled range of automotive car parts in the UK.^[13]

In April 2013, H2 sold Sator Holding to Unipart Automotive's main rival Euro Car parts for £176 million.^[14] In July 2014, Unipart Automotive entered into administration with the loss of more than 1200 jobs. Some branches and 361 staff were moved to Andrew Page and the Parts Alliance.^[15]

In 2014, Unipart Group began working with Andrew Page and the UK Parts Alliance to ensure that British used car owners were would continue to be supported via Unipart Car Care Centres, which are based in towns across the UK, and delivered the same standard of service to their customers.^[16] In December 2014, Unipart announced a joint venture with Lucchini RS Group, the venture was named LUR Limited and produced railway wheel, wheelsets and other activities.^[17]

In March 2015, the company announced that it was launching a new high-tech engineering and manufacturing business called Unipart Powertrain Applications.^[18]

In May 2015 Unipart announced its biggest rise in profits for 10 years, said to be due to continued productivity improvements.^[19] That same year, Unipart launched a joint venture with Rolls-Royce called MetLase Limited. MetLase uses high precision, laser cutting technology, and patented assembly and joining systems, to enable engineers to produce prototypes rapidly.^[20]

In 2016, Unipart Rail acquired Park Signalling, a firm specialising in the design and build of signalling, telecoms, control and monitoring equipment on rail networks.^[21] In 2017, Unipart Rail acquired Key Fasteners, a supplier of rail industry materials, and a controlling share Instrumental Ltd., one of the UK's leading technology companies.^[22] In 2018, Unipart Logistics and Waterstones agreed to extend their long-term partnership for an additional five years.^[23]

Corporate affairs

Unipart's traditional promotion of its services was by motorsports sponsorship, from 1978 with the Triumph Dolomite Formula 3 team, and from 1980 in Formula One, first with Ensign and then with McLaren until 1983. Once Unipart was completely independent they returned to Formula One sponsorship, with Tyrrell and later with Jordan Grand Prix.

Unipart has strong links with the local community and education, supporting many community initiatives and organisations. Unipart has a traditionally strong affiliation with motorsport. In 2006, the company teamed up with Nigel Mansell and his sons, Greg and Leo, in a sponsorship deal in support of Nigel's sons' careers in Formula BMW.^[35]

In 2015, Unipart was one of a handful of companies to receive a five star rating in the Business in the Community 2015 Corporate Responsibility (CR) Index—the UK's leading benchmark of responsible business.^[36] The following year, Unipart Group scored 100% in the 2016 Corporate Responsibility Index.^[37]

In 2017, the company won The Fujitsu Award for Responsible Business in the Digital age at the Responsible Business Awards.^[38] The company received an additional 18 awards from the British Safety Council.^[39]

Divisions

Unipart Logistics warehouse, Cowley.

There are three main operating divisions within the Unipart Group, these main operating divisions are Unipart Logistics, Unipart Manufacturing and Unipart Consultancy and within these are various business units.

• Unipart Logistics: This division manages end-to-end supply chains while providing a variety of other services including warehousing, fulfillment and reverse logistics in Europe, Asia Pacific and North America. Through its supply chain consulting arm, the company provides supply chain optimisation.^[48] It won a five year £730 million contract in September 2018 for transporting medical equipment to NHS trusts in September 2018 after a legal challenge from DHL Supply Chain, the incumbent supplier.^[49]
• Unipart International: With operations based in mainland Europe, the Gulf and the USA, Unipart International provides services and products to the truck and bus aftermarket, the collision parts industry and the industrial and automotive heat exchange markets.
• Unipart Rail: This division is located in the North of England with sites in Crewe, Doncaster and York and provides engineering and logistic solutions to the rail supply chain. The company also has several other brands which it has acquired and trades under such as Dorman who specialise in LED Lighting. In 2015, the division was recognised as the best in the industry for collaborative working at the UK Rail Industry Awards.^[50]
• Unipart Manufacturing: This division produces original equipment components and is a first-tier supplier to the automotive industry, supplying a customer base which includes British, European and Japanese vehicle manufacturers. It also designs, manufactures and services heat exchangers. In 2016, Unipart Manufacturing announced a 7-year contract supplying engine components for Ford cars being manufactured in China.^[51]
• Unipart Expert Practices: This division provides services to external clients in the form of management and supply chain consultancy. UEP has worked with business in the sectors including Health, Government and Finance.^[40][52]

Philanthropy

Unipart also supported an initiative to inspire young people who were struggling at school. They attended classes within Unipart daily and are supported through work experience. By being treated as trainees rather than pupils their attendance records and academic progress have been transformed. The programme is called Unipart Inspires, and it brings together work experience with training in job hunting skills such as interview practice, CV writing and using social media to search for jobs.^[53] Unipart has also supported an initiative to give homeless people supported and paid employment.^[54]

Unipart has also instituted community programmes that send its engineers into nearby schools to teach problem-solving techniques and its consultants to job centres to increase employability potential. The company has also worked with the long-term unemployed to help find work.^[55]

References

External links

• Unipart Group Official site