Interview
so on. And it’s a family business; my father left me with a very valuable business to look after so I’m hoping to do the same with him.” With the 60th anniversary looming, celebrations are already underway. The main celebration took place a couple of weeks ago where staff and some customers and suppliers attended a party in Brighton to celebrate. They rented a club called Komedia in Brighton where they had the dinner and party. “The other celebration we will have in September will be a big cake which we will have in the building and one afternoon we will all stop and enjoy cake and champagne with all the staff,” said Laughton. There have been some changes in the company including the change to a distribution company in the early 1960s. Other changes have happened with the development of the internet which has changed the way people work. Technology advances means that the company can do different things and take new approaches to the way they work. “The original principle when my dad started the business was that he wanted to build something that he could call his own and that he could be in charge of and in control of and be proud of and I don’t think that has changed over the years,” he explained. “The technology we use has changed and the business that we are in has changed. And we are moving up the scale in terms of the scale of company that we deal with and support and provide service to, but the basic ‘why we are here’ is just the same.”
The biggest market for Aerco is
currently the defence market in general, covering aircraft, vehicles and shipping. The second biggest market for the company is commercial aircraft and that’s primarily Airbus and Boeing. The third biggest market is the rail industry. “We are currently working on connectors for the rail industry,” said Laughton. “The rail industry is going really strongly at the moment in the UK. The Crossrail investment that is going on and the high speed trains being brought in, and lots of new carriages and railway engines are going in all the time. There is billions being spent in the UK on rail.” With the recent Brexit vote, the
electronics industry has been uncertain with much speculation about trading issues and whether small companies could survive in the times ahead. Laughton, a strong remain voter, wants to focus on making it work in the industry and keeping Aerco from experiencing a bad impact.
“I think the biggest impact that we have seen, which is hopefully short-term, is interest rates which has penalised Aerco quite a lot. The pound dropped in value by 15 per cent since the Brexit vote which means that everything we import is now 15 per cent more expensive. And we do import quite a lot. I think there is an interesting question about how well the UK will be received by European customers in the next few years. I don’t know how that will play out. We sell to an Italian company which makes helicopters and I am getting some
indication that they might not be so keen in the future if we are not in the EU because there may be tariffs imposed on the products. I’m hoping that won’t be the case and that tariffs won’t be put in place but there is that risk there and that could be significant. “And to some degree it is not so much a threat to the existing business because we don’t export an awful lot to Europe but that sort of thing is starting to grow and it may be that some
business that we might otherwise have got had we not left may no longer be available. But on the other hand, the question is will Britain become more outward looking and will we be able to explore other markets outside of Europe. We would certainly be keen to do that but at the moment I think it’s still early days and there is still a lot more to happen.”
www.aerco.co.uk
www.cieonline.co.uk
Components in Electronics
September 2016 13
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