Is the new West Midlands industrial strategy already paying off?

According to its cheerleaders, the answer is yes, thanks to a Massachusetts-based relocator.

The world’s leading manufacturer of high-performance fibre lasers, IPG Photonics, has invested £15M in Coventry’s Ansty Park, where it will create a new 50K SF UK HQ. The new office will be open by 2020.

The firm is the latest in a string of recent, prominent U.S. investments in the West Midlands worth a combined value of £100M. Other companies include Genesee & Wyoming, a market leader in freight transportation solutions, and precision manufacturer Bromford Industries.

“For us, there isn’t a better-placed location to accelerate the industrialisation of laser-based manufacturing," IPG Photonics UK Managing Director David Goodwin said.

“It is an example of what the West Midlands Local industrial strategy promises, as further foundations are provided to boost productivity by investing in skills, industries and infrastructure," Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership Chair Jonathan Browning said.

Homes England sold the 1.7-hectare site in Ansty Park, to IPG Photonics in June 2018.

The investment from IPG Photonics will include maintaining and upgrading its partnership with the Manufacturing Technology Centre — an advanced manufacturing R&D hub within Coventry’s wider business technology park, Ansty Park. Significant development has been undertaken on this site, with major occupiers already including HTRC, Sainsbury’s, FANUC and The London Taxi Co.