Saietta Group plc announced that it has taken on a manufacturing facility in Sunderland, UK through a number of agreements with ZF Automotive UK Limited. The agreements will enable Saietta to meet its stated objective of establishing a UK pilot production facility, with capacity to produce 100,000 units per annum, significantly ahead of its target and budget at the time of IPO. The Sunderland Factory is a specialised automotive electric motor manufacturing facility of 86,000 square feet with a history of manufacturing over 20 million electric motors for a range of automotive applications.

In addition, Saietta has purchased a total of 4 motor production lines and an electronic circuit board production line for a consideration of £1.1 million, a considerable amount of this equipment can be re-purposed to meet the needs of Saietta's customers going forward, potentially representing a meaningful cost saving. Thirty-nine former ZF personnel with a range of critical skills including fabrication, engineering, IT, quality control, finance and process management will join Saietta. This team's ability to deliver efficient and timely fabrication and certification of electric motors for automotive applications is extremely valuable and scalable - as is the Sunderland Factory's established supply and logistics chain.

Saietta intends to use the Sunderland Factory to manufacture its heavy commercial vehicle drivetrains (which were previously manufactured in China) as well as scale up the production of its AFT motors for its European marine subsidiary "Propel" and other customers.