PP Control & Automation’s new CEO has bold plans to transform a fragmented UK industry
As an award-winning provider of strategic outsourcing and contract manufacturing solutions, PP Control & Automation (PP C&A) is a trusted partner to many of the most respected machine builders across the globe. Offering module or assembly based, part or full machine build outsourcing solutions, PP C&A combines extensive engineering and production capabilities to meet the most specific customer requirements.
Established in 1967, PP C&A has evolved into one of the largest independent suppliers of control and automation solutions in Europe, serving sectors like food processing, machine tools, medical equipment, energy, and security. However, PP C&A is at a pivotal moment; with financial backing from Ardenton Capital and a new CEO, Pinaki Banerjee, at the helm, PP C&A has set out its vision to become a £100-million group over the next five years. Pinaki’s experience in successful merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, along with his extensive global career, puts PP C&A in a strong position to achieve this goal.
“PP C&A is market-leading in its segment, and with more than 200 employees, we’re the biggest player by far,” Pinaki opens, first focusing on the company’s operations and capabilities. “Our core operation is con-tract manufacturing, more specifically electrical control and automation, electro-mechanical assembly, and the assembly and integration of pneumatics, hydraulics, and fluid power systems across several industries. We work to the design of our customers, which range from some of the largest OEMs in the world to innovative startups.
“We typically serve five major market segments: industrial OEM, energy and infrastructure, food and beverage, medical and life science, and high technology. We’ve built trusted relationships with OEMs over the years, and this will always be a solid revenue source for the business. There’s currently a lot of activity in the energy sector with ongoing investment in energy transition, grid infrastructure upgrades, and demand for data centers. Energy is an exciting opportunity for us, and our existing relationships with top suppliers and companies like Siemens and GE position us well to grow in this market.
“Food and beverage is also a long-term growth market for us, as we already serve some of the biggest machinery manufacturers in the industry,” Pinaki adds. “We’re targeting defense and security in light of the UK’s accelerated demand and investment over the past 12 months, and the medical sector is also a considerable segment tied to our growth plans. Lastly, we specialize in what we refer to as the high technology sector, which includes specialist projects and unique work for startups. For instance, we recently worked with a startup called EBar, which is transforming bar service at live sporting events. Now the fast-est growing automated self-serve drinks solution in the UK, we supported EBar with the complete electronics and mechanical build, as well as full assembly of the state-of-the-art model.”
Growth strategy
Having recently joined as CEO, and with ambitious plans for the business, we ask Pinaki for more details about his growth strategy. “I’ve been in the role of CEO for six months [at the time of writing], and I’m ex-cited about the journey we’re on,” he shares. “My mission is to take the business from good to great, leveraging my global experience in M&A to consolidate what is a very fragmented industry in the UK. Such consolidation has never been done before in this industry, but it has the potential to disrupt the sector, leading to increased scale and value for shareholders. It’s a great opportunity to carve a legacy, and for context, we’re currently turning over around £30 million-to-£35 million but my goal is to take the company to £100 million by 2028 and transform it into a £500-million group in the next five-to-ten years.
“Thirty percent of this five-to-ten-year growth will come organically, and the other 70 percent will be through M&A activity,” Pinaki elaborates. “We’re looking at three major geographic targets: America, as most of our customer base is already there and domestic manufacturing is favorable; Eastern Europe,
which has a very low cost base versus the UK and would enable us to better serve European markets; and we’re looking to buy an asset in India where we can leverage some of our existing customers in the UK on new projects.”
To kickstart this growth plan, Pinaki is aiming for a record year in 2026. “We’re aiming to exceed £40 million in turnover for 2026, making it the best year yet for PP C&A,” he confirms. “I’m pleased that we are already ahead of our forecasted target for the first quarter, and we have a healthy pipeline for the remainder of the year. The first thing I did when I took over as CEO was establish a dedicated sales and commercial team, which is central to growth and consolidation. We now have five experienced people in this team, who are working hard to develop the business and achieve a record year for 2026.”
With these plans in place, efficiency and productivity are key to PP C&A’s success, and there are several initiatives underway to drive these metrics. “Internally, we have strengthened our supply chain and reorganized the business to increase capacity by an additional 50 percent without investing in capital assets,” Pinaki explains.
Pinaki is also embracing technology as a means of driving innovation and efficiency. “I was very clear about my digital and AI strategy when I came on board as CEO, and PP C&A is the first company in the UK, and, as far as I’m aware, the first in the industry, to create a bespoke AI product,” Pinaki reveals. “We’ve worked on an agentic AI model to drive efficiency and productivity in two key areas of our operation: Bill of Materials (BOM) and labor. Calculating a BOM typically involves an engineer analyzing schematic designs that could be hundreds or even thousands of pages. Our AI model can read these documents to provide summaries and present the most meaningful parts to our engineers, so although an engineer still needs to check the results, the tool is already making 40 percent savings in terms of engineering time.
“Although this investment is large for a company of our size, the AI tool will have a direct impact on our bottom line, and I believe that the companies that don’t adopt AI now will be left behind,” he adds. “We’re currently adding more features to our model using 55 years of legacy data, and we’ve just appointed a company in Silicon Valley to develop the model. We plan to then apply for a patent for this technology be-fore making it commercially available to our customers and even potential competitors.”
With an advanced AI tool under development and a strong growth strategy aimed at geographic expansion and M&A activity, PP C&A is sure to succeed under Pinaki’s leadership. “Clear goals and a very healthy order book are giving us momentum to not only achieve a record-breaking year but also make history by transforming and consolidating this market over the next five-to-ten years,” Pinaki concludes.
