Wrightbus CEO: 'I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to the people of Ballymena and Northern Ireland'

The chief executive officer of Wrightbus has issued a ‘heartfelt thanks’ to the people of Northern Ireland for their support over the years.

Jean-Marc Gales was speaking after the Ballymena bus manufacturer secured its largest order in the firm’s 78-year history.

The landmark £500million deal with English bus operator Go Ahead aims to supply up to 1,200 new zero emission buses over the next three years creating a new dedicated manufacturing line in the Ballymena facility.

Proud that the Go-Ahead contract has given the local industry a huge boost, he explained: “The recent news certainly has put Northern Ireland and Ballymena on the map. Even the Prime Minister mentioned £500m investment into Northern Ireland in the House of Commons.

"It’s great, only positive. It’s a three year deal which is a good feeling already and we aim to continue gaining those deals.

"The recent announcement was a historic day, one of the biggest deals that was ever announced and it comes to us, here in Ballymena.”

Creating 500 Northern Ireland jobs mostly skilled labour workers, the contract will also support 1,500 within the UK supply chain.

Addressing the need for Wrightbus to expand and employ, as well as fulfilling numerous world-wide contracts, he continued: “We will find a way, at present we are working four days a week and might expand into different working hours and into a nightshift. We will manage that.

“We went from 800 people early last year to 2,000 now and we will add another 500 within the next five months.

"We are going to manage it and we are certainly going to build many more buses than last year.

"We built 618 last year, this year we are well above 1,000, next year we will be considerably above a 1,000.”

And filling hundreds of new roles in Ballymena is ‘no problem’ to the CEO: "We went from 50 in 2019 to 2,000 right now..we will find 500 people, I am very confident about that.”

Founded in 1946 Wrightbus can trace its history to the years after World War Two, when Robert Wright began making body work for vans and other vehicles. He was joined by his son William who was instrumental in transforming the business into a major bus builder.

In 2012, Wrightbus was riding high. The company launched a new red double decker bus for London. A fleet of the New Routemasters had been ordered by the then mayor Boris Johnson - and so became known as Boris Buses.

It was a triumphant time for the Ballymena business, however 2019 witnessed the firm fall into administration.

Wrightbus has come a long way since it was rescued out of administration by Jo Bamford in 2019.

Part of the growth plans, in 2023, Jean-Marc was appointed as the new CEO having spent over 30 years in the automotive industry.

In the post for the last 18 months, he still loves what he does and is extremely proud of how far the company has come: "I love my job. We are building first class buses. This is why we have so many orders right now, why we have 40% of the market share in the UK is because we build the best bus.

"We have the best engineers, we build an extremely efficient bus, we know how to build them, we are building them well, I have absolutely no reason to be doubtful, and all the reasons in the world to be very optimistic about the future of this company.

"The eight months this year we have been doubling our revenue compared to the first eight months last year. And we will continue to grow, I am sure of that.”

Revealing more contracts in the pipeline, the CEO boasted: ”Of course, there is more to come, we are not going to stop. We are continuously moving ahead. We are the fastest growing company in the whole of Europe and we are number one in terms of market share in the UK.

"We are continuing to grow. We are growing in the UK, we’re growing in Ireland, in Germany we are delivering our first buses now. We will also grow in Asia, we plan to deliver our buses to Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia.

"And what’s more, the bus capacity for Ireland, UK and Europe will be all from Ballymena.

"There are already more contracts for this year which we have not yet announced – but we will later this year.”

The Go-Ahead deal is set to spark a new era of green growth and has been backed by the UK government. However Jean-Marc believes more can be done: "One of the things that the UK needs to move faster on is churning out more good graduates and more great skilled crafts persons.

“You can only grow with people and we need to start with apprentices and good programmes. We will continue doing the good work we are doing here, but without the good people the technological advances we have made will not keep.

"The good news is that we are very closely linked to the Queen’s University and there are quite a few excellent PNDs from Queen’s that work in our company now.”

Asked about the possible further expansion into the electric car world, Jean-Marc laughed: “I never speculate about the future at the moment we are with buses.

"We are certainly well positioned here, just look at what we have done in the last five years. And we have a lot more to do with our buses, and I am looking forward to that. There are certainly developments in the buses that we need to focus on. We focus on that first and then see what happens.”

Thanking staff and the whole of Northern Ireland for their dedication and support, he added: “I really appreciate all the very positive comments that have been made about us since we announced the deal. This is a jewel in manufacturing in Northern Ireland and is a jewel in the manufacturing in the whole of the UK.

"We are the fastest growing large manufacturing business in the UK and it is here in Ballymena, so it’s amazing. We are market leaders in zero emissions transport.

"One zero emissions bus that replaces a diesel bus also replaces 40,000 litres of diesel which would otherwise lead to 80 tonnes of Co2. We do a good thing for employment, for technology and for our planet.

"I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to the people of Ballymena and Northern Ireland. We have great team spirit here. This is not the result of one or a group of people, this is the result of a team. All 2,000 of our staff have got us to where we are. Coming in every morning and doing a good job and making this company grow again.

"The people of Ballymena have also supported us a lot. I would like to give my big thanks to them all.”