“For the past 12 months we recognised that for us to grow the business in new regions around the world in a relatively short period of time we needed equity investment from an organisation that was suitable for us and our plans,” said managing director Paul Underwood.
The cards are distributed across 25 countries and Underwood said the BGF backing would help to expand this reach.
“Certain parts of the world have a demand for the whole range of products that we offer, many of these regions we are already in but we want to expand that. They include specifically the African market, eastern Europe and the Middle East,” said Underwood.
“There are significant opportunities to go for in the next three years and we wanted to ensure that lack of finance did not hinder us from doing that,” he added.
The £18m-turnover Essex-based business produces around 175m plastic cards a year including retail customer loyalty and gift cards, 'smart' chip cards and banking sector cards such as Visa and Mastercard.
The cards are produced at the company’s 3,700sqm facility in Rayleigh, Essex on a range of machinery including bespoke Mitsubushi, Oasys and Mühlbauer card manufacturing equipment and Atlantic Zeiser and NBS personalisation equipment.
The cards are then printed using litho and screen printing techniques on its Mitsubishi six-colour and Akiyama four colour-presses.
Following lamination and punching they are then either delivered direct to the customer or combined with mailings printed on TCT’s continuous and sheetfed laser printers and prepared for sending.
Underwood said that, under TCT’s growth plans, all manufacturing would remain in the UK but that the company intended to expand its sales and business development activities across its operating regions.
With the investment, the business has expanded the senior management team of its 200-strong workforce with the appointment of a new non-executive director while the BGF’s head of manufacturing Mark Bryant and investment director Rory Pope will provide ongoing support.
Pope said: “Thames Card Technology is an excellent example of a business that is suited to the growth capital investment that BGF is offering. It has done exceptionally well to reach the position that it occupies today as a respected card manufacturer and a leading company in its space and it has been able to fund steady upward growth from its own balance sheet.
“However, Paul and the senior team now want to see that growth accelerate and recognise that we can help them to capitalise on the opportunities in the international banking market and the prepaid card market.
“For BGF, this is an exciting opportunity to support a UK manufacturing business that is looking to grow its domestic and export sales,” he added.
