HOWZAT

Johnson’s site at Royston is testament to its breakneck growth. Lured north from London 50 years ago by local councillors with the promise of new homes for staff and 25 acres of land, today the facility is bursting at the seams.

Two years ago it opened a diesel soot-filter factory, producing 1m units annually. This year it opened another, next door, to double capacity. A larger technology centre, to increase the volume of testing that Johnson can handle, is due to open next spring.

Such demand has also cost Johnson employees a cricket pitch and latterly a football ground, although its social club, a single-storey chalet built in dark wood, remains on site.

“By the time we commission and build a plant we usually need another one,” said Antoine Bordet, sales and marketing director for Johnson’s environmental technologies division.

He is striding to the rear of the campus, where four catalyst production lines operate round the clock. Inside, behind security checks and a thick iron mesh is Johnson’s secret ingredient — the precious metals platinum, palladium and rhodium, stored in liquid form in conical vats. The company goes through £25m of these key materials each month at Royston alone.

On one production line, today supplying Peugeot, each cylinder is half-coated with solution before it is flipped by a robot claw, dosed at the other end and baked at 200C for up to two hours. Each converter is the result of typically three years’ work, but at the end of it is a supply contract lasting for at least the same length of time.

As the world’s biggest user of platinum, Johnson has been instrumental in driving up the price 60% in the past year to $2,000 an ounce as a 9% hike in demand outstripped a 4% supply fall. It invoices car-makers separately for the precious metal so it does not become a hostage to booming prices. As sole marketer of the metal for Anglo Platinum, which mines it in South Africa, Johnson also takes a cut from wholesaling to third parties.

Its car customers appreciate every last efficiency it can make. Converters that used 60g of precious metals are being produced to the same compliance level for China 15 years later using just 5g.

Carson, who has worked for the company since joining its graduate scheme in 1980, insists on developing new converters in Royston and beginning production here. “We don’t want our scientists to spend their working lives on a plane,” he said.

Unlike certain pharmaceutical companies, Johnson does not grumble about the quality of graduates. It welcomes a steady stream of scientists, and an increasing number from overseas. Most stay for decades.

International expansion has been brisk. Production lines opened in Korea and Russia last year; Macedonia and Pennsylvania in America follow next, giving the company 14 plants around the world.

For some, notably in the US, the car industry is not a great place to be. Globally, though, the sector grew 3% last year, fuelled by China.

Johnson is hiking its £70m research-and-development budget by 20% this year to tap into new opportunities. Beyond cars, there are signs that emissions from diesel-powered generators could be clamped down on next. “Our belief is that pretty much everywhere there is a diesel engine there will be some kind of legislation to lower the amount of pollution,” said Carson. Soot filters are already selling even before national legislation comes in.

Demand is growing because of local initiatives such as London’s low-emission zone, which from tomorrow week aims to curb fumes from larger diesel lorries, buses and coaches travelling across the capital

Meanwhile, Carson has placed a future bet on fuel cells that also take platinum and could be used to power zero-emission cars of the future. Johnson is already supplying fuel-cell battery packs that recharge forklift trucks in a fraction of the time.

Because of its historic relationship with platinum, there is an element of being in the right place at the right time that has powered Johnson’s success. However, it didn’t get where it is today without huge investment and long-sightedness. Carving out a global role while staying loyal to its roots could be a template for other British manufacturers.

JM's golden past and future

JOHNSON MATTHEY traces its roots back to Percival Norton Johnson, who established a gold-assaying business in London in 1817, soon moving to offices on Hatton Garden. It was not until 1851 that George Matthey joined the firm, creating Johnson & Matthey, which acted as gold refiner to the Bank of England.

The company patented extraction and refining techniques for platinum ores dug up from the Rustenberg mine in South Africa in 1928. The relationship with miner Anglo Platinum continues to this day. Johnson’s ordinary shares were listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1942.

The company produced the world’s first catalyst to reduce vehicle pollution in Royston in 1974. Its money-lending arm was bailed out by the Bank of England a decade later. Johnson continues to refine gold and platinum and produces materials for the chemicals and pharmaceutical industries.

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