Pioneering Powertron is now firmly back on track

You can't keep a good company down - even when the company that's bought it goes bust.

Such is the story of one of Cambridge's longest-established technology companies, still powering ahead, and under its original name.

Miles Rackowe founded Powertron in 1971, from an attic in Great Abington, where he worked all alone, driven by a new concept for power supplies which would revolutionise their size, weight and efficiency.

Powertron pioneered this change and today (Tuesday, 14 February) 99.9% of all power supplies follow the new standard in what is a trillion dollar world market.

"It is also absolutely cut throat. We couldn't buy the components for the price general power supplies are being sold in the Far East," Mr Rackowe says, but Powertron has found a niche it has made its own, in railways.

"We had an order for the Hong Kong Mass Transit System, and then we were encouraged to have a go at the sector, which was dominated by a rather arrogant Swiss company - it was actually their customers who were encouraging us."

Powertron was based in the centre of Cambridge for many years, moving soon after it was sold in 2001 to Bulgin Power Source. A month after the sale "the world fell apart" as Mr Rackowe puts it. He is referring to 9/11.

"The repercussions were felt by everyone, not least Powertron, the electronics industry took a nose dive. The manufacturing facilities in Cambridge were closed and transferred to Lincoln, while the sales and design departments moved to Knapwell, where we are today (Tuesday, 14 February)."

Things did not go well in Lincoln. The core manufacturing team which had been together for years, had decided to take redundancy rather than leave Cambridge, and the new work force just couldn't get it right: "Things started to implode," Mr Rackowe says, "and in December 2002 they did and the company went into voluntary liquidation."

When he had sold the company just over a year earlier it employed 50 people and was turning over £2.4m. Seeing it about to disappear must have been heartbreaking for the man who had nurtured it over three decades, built up an international customer base and reputation second to none.

"Here was a very good company, with a full order book, and going down the drain. There had been a team of highly competent and skilled people, who were also good friends. It didn't seem reasonable to let that fall apart without a fight."

Mr Rackowe had wanted to retire when he sold the business, but there was nothing for it but to join the management buy-out team and stage a rescue.

The essential bits were bought from the liquidator, and sub-contractors found for production, with the newly named Powertron Converters setting up their own test facilities above the factory floor.

Three years on, and last week the company invited Jeremy Candfield, director general of the Railway Industry Association, to officially open the company's new building at Knapwell, a converted grain store on Glebe Farm Technical Campus.

"We are nearly back to the turnover we had when I sold the company in 2001," Mr Rackowe says. They probably would have got there had it not been for a slowdown in the railway industry.

Mr Candfield explains that when the Government started awarding rail franchises, operators had it written into their contracts that much of the rolling stock had to be replaced. This has meant five years of bonanza for the sector, but now it's all done, and companies like Powertron are having to concentrate their efforts on export.

Powertron converters are used for many functions on board trains, as the illustration shows. Today (Tuesday, 14 February)'s trains, according to Powertron managing director Mike Carter, have a huge requirement for power supplies, compared with just a few years ago.

Andrew Roden, news editor of International Railway Journal, says: "Ten years ago you could get away with maintaining a train with a tool kit, now you have to have a laptop."

Powertron carries out much of its rail industry production in Poland, but also still uses sub-contractors in St Neots and Bedford, and for one-off custom jobs, which can be outside the rail industry, it does the work in-house. Most of the people who were made redundant when the company moved have now returned, the old team is back, and Mr Rackowe has given up on the idea of retirement. JC

14 February 2006

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