Surface Transforms - Page 2 - 911/Carrera GT - PistonHeads UK

Surface Transforms (AIM: SCE) manufacturers of carbon fibre reinforced ceramic automotive brake discs, announces the following major customer update. Major customer update - Loss of contract The Company has been informed by General Motors ("GM") that it is re-sourcing its supply of brake disks with effect from 31st March 2026. GM is the Company's most significant customer and in FY 2025 formed £15.3m (84%) of revenues and 85% of discs sold and was under contract until 2030. Additionally, since November 2024 GM has provided the Company with operational support and financial assistance including advance payments of £14.4m. Outlook The Company has not yet had the opportunity to speak directly with GM about the termination, but the loss of this contract has a material impact on the Company's ability to trade and as a result the Directors intend to immediately engage corporate restructuring advisers to protect stakeholder's interests. Further information will be provided as appropriate.

Yeah - just seeing that news filtering through. I imagine that could be curtains now? It's just too expensive to make this kind of manufacturing working in the UK I guess. There are quite a few other CCM vendors popping up out of China foundry's now - so even if the product isn't quite the same - the costs and availability will outweigh the performance. The best ability is availability!

Shares have fallen 95% today.

gtsralph said: Surface Transforms (AIM: SCE) manufacturers of carbon fibre reinforced ceramic automotive brake discs, announces the following major customer update. Major customer update - Loss of contract The Company has been informed by General Motors ("GM") that it is re-sourcing its supply of brake disks with effect from 31st March 2026. GM is the Company's most significant customer and in FY 2025 formed £15.3m (84%) of revenues and 85% of discs sold and was under contract until 2030. Additionally, since November 2024 GM has provided the Company with operational support and financial assistance including advance payments of £14.4m. Outlook The Company has not yet had the opportunity to speak directly with GM about the termination, but the loss of this contract has a material impact on the Company's ability to trade and as a result the Directors intend to immediately engage corporate restructuring advisers to protect stakeholder's interests. Further information will be provided as appropriate. What could possibly go wrong ...

Ceased manufacturing on the 12th March ?

March 30, Liverpool Echo: Around 70 workers have been laid off at a Merseyside company that was given a £13m loan by the Liverpool City Region - as the firm teeters on the brink of administration following the loss of a major contract. Workers at supercar parts manufacturers Surface Transforms told the ECHO they were laid off by email an hour before their shift started. Others said they were turned away by management as they arrived at work. Update today: A third Notice of Intention to appoint administrators has been filed by Knowsley-based Surface Transforms. The move buys the manufacturer of carbon fibre reinforced ceramic automotive brake discs more time to try and rescue the stricken business. The NOI protects the company against any creditor enforcement action for a further period of 10 working days. Surface Transforms had previously published NOIs on March 12 and March 25, 2026.

From both a patriotic POV and also selfish (I have a set of their discs on my car) perspective, I hope the company can be saved. It does seem to be the sort of tech that a UK based manufacturer can and should be able to carve out a niche in.

Digga said: From both a patriotic POV and also selfish (I have a set of their discs on my car) perspective, I hope the company can be saved. It does seem to be the sort of tech that a UK based manufacturer can and should be able to carve out a niche in. When I spoke to their (then) Chairman almost 20 years ago at Spa, one of the things that surprised me was their significant lack of patents and IP. That may have been a consequence of the process and technology not enabling such protection, or the competition found a simple way to circumvent the patents, but it's no surprise that other comanies in the far east have replicated (and improved) their product and manufacturing process at higher scale and lower price. They could never get sufficient volume to make the business credible, the only way would have been re-locating manufacturing to low cost countries and scaled up, which is what their competitors have done. I would expect GM have already moved with one of the alternatives. Sad as you say for the employees, suppliers and a UK company, but was only ever a matter of time IMO. Edited by 993rsr on Friday 10th April 13:23

993rsr said: Digga said: From both a patriotic POV and also selfish (I have a set of their discs on my car) perspective, I hope the company can be saved. It does seem to be the sort of tech that a UK based manufacturer can and should be able to carve out a niche in. When I spoke to their (then) Chairman almost 20 years ago at Spa, one of the things that surprised me was their significant lack of patents and IP. That may have been a consequence of the process and technology not enabling such protection, or the competition found a simple way to circumvent the patents, but it's no surprise that other comanies in the far east have replicated (and improved) their product and manufacturing process at higher scale and lower price. They could never get sufficient volume to make the business credible, the only way would have been re-locating manufacturing to low cost countries and scaled up, which is what their competitors have done. I would expect GM have already moved with one of the alternatives. Sad as you say for the employees, suppliers and a UK company, but was only ever a matter of time IMO. Yes it's a shame. There are other places you can go to get brakes re-freshed. I know you and I both used Rebrake in Munich in the past. It's just that anything overseas adds time, cost and complexity and, out of sheer laziness and convenience, I'd always tend to prefer a UK solution. Given the amount of motorsport based in the UK, let alone automotive, it is a shame they never found any volume. All that said if, in theory, Far Eastern product is usable and cheap enough, it moves the goalposts closer to that of steel in terms of single use.

From today's Times: The government last year launched its Drive35 ambition to decarbonise the automotive industry within a decade. Ministers claim it will create 50,000 jobs and unlock £7.5 billion in private investment. Outside of the big well-known manufacturers, winners of government support to get businesses toward commercial readiness include HyProMag, based in Birmingham, producing magnets from rare earth minerals in motors in electric vehicles; Maeving, an electric motorbike manufacturer based in Coventry; and Elm Mobility of Banbury in Oxfordshire, producing final-stage delivery vehicles. among those due to receive scale-up funding from the department are Surface Transforms , a specialist carbon-ceramic brake discs business in Liverpool, which last month had its listing on Aim, London’s junior stock market, cancelled after it appointed administrators with a view to selling the business. A departmental official said the company has “been successful in the application process but has not yet undergone the financial checks and due diligence required to receive the funding”.

Usually with such grants, one does not qualify if one is in administration. Personally, I think they are well worth saving and hope they get through this

I imagine the cost of production is the main driver of this. It is a high energy use process after all. Just another example of the impact of the insane green eco zealots policies. AI powerhouse promiss looking rather silly after the OpenAI news

They never really attained reliable scaled up production volumes and OEMs need confidence in supply chains.

Their accounts have been terrible forever. Last two years they made £4m Gross Profit on sales of about £8m, but spent £24-£27m on Admin and R&D.

They need to be taken out by an OEM tbh. They've been promising jam tomorrow to investors for as long as I can think. Very dissappointing GM pulled out in the way they did but to be reliant on one OEM for 80% plus of your business very high risk.

Guyr said: Their accounts have been terrible forever. Last two years they made £4m Gross Profit on sales of about £8m, but spent £24-£27m on Admin and R&D. I’d heard this. I can imagine the R&D bit to be extremely, eyewateringly costly, but I haven’t seen split with basic management costs.

I know Rebrake can referb PCCB’s but can you also do Surface Transform?

FL Racing said: I know Rebrake can referb PCCB s but can you also do Surface Transform? Good question and I do not know the answer. Also, decent as they are, it’s not just a couple of week process.

FL Racing said: I know Rebrake can referb PCCB s but can you also do Surface Transform? Yes, Surface Transforms are supposedly good for resurfacing twice, and it wasn't that expensive. Think it might have been a return to factory job though.

My understanding is that the discs can be put in a lathe & re-surfaced 2-3 times. They are of a fundamentally different construction to PCCBs which are a thin layer laid on top of a carbon ceramic matrix. I will add that (10 years ago) ST were extremely difficult to deal with - the main problems being a total lack of communication and somewhat optimistic timelines. One order I remember took the best part of a year to materialize & then the bells had been incorrectly manufactured. All the while having embarrassing conversations with the customer. That was the last order we put in...

Chris W had his 981 GT4 refurbished by ST at a cost of £600 each from memory. Chris has bigger things on his plate currently, but I'm sure he'll be along at some point to explain the process. The material is incredibly tough and wear resistant, so machining them is not easy. Chris will confirm, but I suspect they may dismount the disc from the bell to enable them to refurbish the faces. So not just a case of dropping them into a lathe chuck and removing material. Along with 993 RSR, I was one of the earliest adopters of the ST discs on my 996 GT2. The discs they supplied me with weren't drilled, so I subsequently requested they drill them to improve bite in wet conditions. They were happy to do so, but told me that drilling all four discs used something like five carbide drill bits for each disc, so hard was the material the discs are made from.

Slippydiff said: Chris W had his 981 GT4 refurbished by ST at a cost of £600 each from memory. Chris has bigger things on his plate currently, but I'm sure he'll be along at some point to explain the process. The material is incredibly tough and wear resistant, so machining them is not easy. Chris will confirm, but I suspect they may dismount the disc from the bell to enable them to refurbish the faces. So not just a case of dropping them into a lathe chuck and removing material. Along with 993 RSR, I was one of the earliest adopters of the ST discs on my 996 GT2. The discs they supplied me with weren't drilled, so I subsequently requested they drill them to improve bite in wet conditions. They were happy to do so, but told me that drilling all four discs used something like five carbide drill bits for each disc, so hard was the material the discs are made from. I thought ST had gone into administration so asking if any other company can do the servicing of the ST discs?

Looks bad for them.

https://www.surfacetransforms.com it's in the gazette now under administration 28 April

ras62 said: I imagine the cost of production is the main driver of this. It is a high energy use process after all. Just another example of the impact of the insane green eco zealots policies. AI powerhouse promiss looking rather silly after the OpenAI news Definitely not the failed energy policies over the last 30+ years then?

They never got on top of the production process in volume and after a couple of diluting share issues due to this, their biggest OEM lost faith and abandoned them.

From a google search there is no alternative company doing what they were offering. Now the only option would be OEM such as.... 997 ceramic kit https://teile.com/en/porsche-tequipment-shop/model... ...only £40K Edited by Jones the cat on Saturday 2nd May 18:38

Jones the cat said: From a google search there is no alternative company doing what they were offering. Now the only option would be OEM such as.... 997 ceramic kit https://teile.com/en/porsche-tequipment-shop/model... ...only £40K

Jones the cat said: From a google search there is no alternative company doing what they were offering. Now the only option would be OEM such as.... 997 ceramic kit https://teile.com/en/porsche-tequipment-shop/model... ...only £40K Edited by Jones the cat on Saturday 2nd May 18:38 I have not looked into it in detail, but when I last checked if I could find CCBs that fit under my 17 inch rims, there were more providers. Not sure if they can do the correct size / fitment etc, but worth asking. I'll need to google to add some names. Edit: StopFlex was one of them

Slippydiff said: Jones the cat said: From a google search there is no alternative company doing what they were offering. Now the only option would be OEM such as.... 997 ceramic kit https://teile.com/en/porsche-tequipment-shop/model... ...only £40K Let's hope I did not just make that point due to lack of research/knowledge :-)

Slippydiff said: Go on then, answer with a like-for-like alternative to Surface Transforms. What a waste of pixels your reply is.

https://www.icooh.com/product/ic6-carbon-ceramic-b... There you go, replace the entire braking system for a Chinese carbon version for about twelve quid.

Tripe Bypass said: https://www.icooh.com/product/ic6-carbon-ceramic-b... There you go, replace the entire braking system for a Chinese carbon version for about twelve quid. £510

Update today: “Surface Transforms plc, now in administration, has completed the sale of substantially all of its business and assets to CCST Limited for £1.4 million in cash, with an additional £90,000 to be paid to Close Brothers Limited. The transaction includes the trading business, intellectual property, and goodwill, with ten employees transferring to the buyer, who will recommence manufacturing carbon ceramic brake discs. CCST Limited, a connected party, obtained a qualifying report confirming the reasonableness of the consideration. The sale proceeds will be used to cover administration costs and pay creditors, with no return expected for shareholders, and the company's shares will be de-listed from AIM on 26 May 2026.” Presumably refurbishing will be available again?

https://lbndaily.co.uk/collapsed-brake-disc-maker-... “The buyer is recommencing the manufacture of carbon ceramic brake discs from the existing site in Knowsley, Liverpool and will be looking to employ workers in the area with the requisite skill set to assist with this.”

gtsralph said: Update today: Surface Transforms plc, now in administration, has completed the sale of substantially all of its business and assets to CCST Limited for £1.4 million in cash, with an additional £90,000 to be paid to Close Brothers Limited. The transaction includes the trading business, intellectual property, and goodwill, with ten employees transferring to the buyer, who will recommence manufacturing carbon ceramic brake discs. CCST Limited, a connected party, obtained a qualifying report confirming the reasonableness of the consideration. The sale proceeds will be used to cover administration costs and pay creditors, with no return expected for shareholders, and the company's shares will be de-listed from AIM on 26 May 2026. Presumably refurbishing will be available again? I really hope so ...

Pre pack deal. Scale the operation down to suit the lower volumes. The loss of the GM contract would have been difficult to reduce staff and overhead. Daft having such a huge chunk of turns on one OEM contract. No matter how ‘good’ contract terms are, large companies always have the whip hand. There’s just so many ways they can kill a small supplier. Hopefully this means we still have ST as a viable track day resource. Fingers crossed.