Sharp Operator

It's almost as if an irresistible force is drawing Stuart Chambers towards the Asian continent. He spent the first 16 years of his life living there, and now, aged 51, has just accepted a new challenge that will see him spending 50 per cent of his time in Tokyo.

Chambers was appointed chief executive of St Helens-based glass manufacturer Pilkington in 2002. Then in 2006, when Pilkington was bought by Japanese group Nippon Sheet Glass (NSG), Chambers agreed to join NSG's board as chief operating officer for a two-year transitory period.

When the transitory period came to an end in March this year, Chambers was asked to stay on and become chief executive of the new group, which employs around 34,000 staff in 29 countries and has a turnover of just over £4bn.

"It's slightly unusual in that we were a global operation headquartered in St Helens and listed on the London stock exchange and now, having being bought by a company about half the size of Pilkington with a regional rather than international presence, we're listed on the Tokyo stock exchange and are headquartered in Tokyo," says Chambers.

But NSG's regional focus had its advantages when it came to integrating the two companies, as it meant there was very little overlap. "NSG was in Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam and Pilkington was pretty much everywhere NSG wasn't. So we weren't faced with the usual acquisition issue of plant closures," says Chambers.

All three of the company's St Helens manufacturing plants are still in operation, as is its Lathom R&D facility, and the group still employs 2,000 people in the Northwest.

Since the takeover, growth has been fairly modest as NSG has focused on repaying debt. "At the moment we're in phase one of our strategy and we're paying down debt rather than investing in growth," explains Chambers. "But as soon as we move into phase two in about 18 months, we will be investing strongly in several areas and expect growth to increase to about eight per cent per annum."

Future growth will be driven by the development of new geographical markets - with South America, Eastern Europe, China and India offering the greatest potential - as well as new applications, he says.

In terms of applications, the group's main focus is glass products for the building and automotive industries, although it is also involved in niche applications like glass for digital music players, phones and touch panel displays for car sat-nav systems.

Demand from the construction industry for commodity base glass generates a solid bread and butter revenue, it is adding specialist coatings to glass to give it special properties that presents a far more lucrative opportunity for the company.

"One particularly interesting area is the development of glass for Photo Voltaic (PV) panels," says Chambers. "We recently invested in our facilities in St Helens to enable it to undertake a major PV project. It involves adding on-line coating capabilities to one of our float glass lines at Greengate, which will enable us to make glass for PV cells."

Another innovation being produced in St Helens is self-cleaning glass. "This has two very impressive characteristics," explains Chambers. "It's hydrophilic, so when it rains, it doesn't dry and leave droplet marks. It's also self-cleaning, whereby through UV radiation from the sun, it breaks down organic deposits and converts them into CO2 and H2O so they simply disappear from the glass."

It might have been an accident of history that led to Pilkington putting down roots in the Northwest, but it's clear that Chambers believes the company's location in the region has been instrumental in shaping the organisation it has become today.

He says, "our recruitment requirement is for manufacturing personnel, engineers and research scientists and for that the Northwest is a fantastic place to be - there are some very good applied universities."