Walsall engineering success story Chamberlin unveiled a staggering 500 per cent increase in profits today as it wins new work at home and abroad.

A major turbocharger castings contract is now under way at Chamberlin’s Chuckery Road foundry, where the workforce has now grown to 140-strong.

And at Cannock the group’s Exidor emergency exit manufacturing firm had become “a really strong business”, said chief executive Tim Hair.

The success comes after Chamberlin’s takeover last year of collapsed Wednesbury firm Jebron which was merged into Exidor. The move rescued the jobs of 25 workers who are now part of a 65-strong Cannock team.

Combined with soaring workloads at the group’s Scunthorpe and Leicester foundries, Chamberlin saw its underlying pre-tax profit rocket to £797,000 in the six months to the end of September, up from £163,000 at the same time last year.

Sales figures were up 25 per cent to £23 million.

Mr Hair said production was now above pre-recession levels in the wake of a successful recovery plan. He said: “Our sales improvem-ent has not just been about existing customers recovering after the recession; we are also winning a good element of new business.”

Looking ahead, Mr Hair said: “We are currently on target for a full year profit of £1.6 million.”