Sovereign Rotating Electrics, the remanufacturing company that went into receivership in early October after the failure of Lucas SRE, has been re-launched.

Now called Sovereign Rotating Machines, the previous infrastructure has been retained, including its factory in Bognor Regis, West Sussex and the company directors.

The firm says it was the level of support shown by customers during the liquidation that gave the directors the confidence to re-launch the company. With input from two private investors it was able to buy back all the assets of the SRE business, apart from the Lucas licenses which have gone back to TRW.

“The overheads were too high and sales were not up to expectations,” says Richard Welland, the managing director of Sovereign Rotating Machines and former Lucas SRE managing director.

SRM will concentrate on starters, dynamos and ignition leads. Difficulties in obtaining the software for testing mach-ines means the electronics will no longer be part of the business. Staff now number 65, down from 180 in December last year.

SRE was founded eight years ago by father and son team Henry and Richard Welland, remanufacturing rotating electrics and ignition leads.

It had just completed a move into remanufacturing electronics when it announced the Lucas SRE joint venture with TRW, owner of the Lucas brand, last October. The company was to remanufacture and distribute Sovereign, Lucas electrical and TRW products.

As reported in our last issue (November 5), TRW has sold new licenses for the Lucas electrical range to Elta Lighting in the West Midlands.