Co-owner Kalkhoven visited Cosworth's headquarters in Northampton in the UK on Wednesday. "He was here to give everyone a heads-up. That was much-appreciated by all," Ferguson said.
Over the last eighteen months Cosworth's managing director Tim Routsis has been spending a lot of time working on new business development. Cosworth is beginning to diversify into aerospace engineering and medical equipment manufacturing and the company plans to continue down this path of wider engineering work.
"Fortunately, we've started on the course of diversification," Ferguson commented. "That's been pretty successful and we've been getting lots of interest from lots of people. But we could have done usefully with another couple of years to get our diversification program going. We're diversifying into areas that have got fairly long lead times and it's left a bit of a
hiatus through 2007. Maybe we won't be in
Formula One next year, but we'll still be in business and will still be a strong engineering company and we'll retain a core of the finest British engineering and manufacturing.
"We see this as the end of one journey and the start of a new journey. We're going to come back stronger and fitter. We'll be doing different things but the Cosworth name and brand is going to be around for a long time to come. We have the full backing and support of our owners and they will be lending their support in all respects, including financially, to help the diversification program develop and take shape, and for us to move on.
"The major opportunities so far have been in the aerospace business," Ferguson continued. "But I think we're being reinvented generally as a high-integrity, high-value engineering component manufacturer and assembler. Realistically, we are on the outskirts of the medical industry, and we're certainly breaking through in the aerospace industry.
