A FAST growing marine engineering firm has been bought-out by its management team.

The deal for Tekmar Energy Ltd, based in Newton Aycliffe, came after Darlington born owner Gary Bland decided to take a step back from the day-to-day running of the company, which produces cable protection devices for offshore wind turbines.

The energy division, which has doubled its workforce to 60 in the past 18 months, was only established three years ago but now has a turnover of around £15m and manufactures around 1,000 cable protection units a year.

It comes as the offshore wind industry enjoys massive growth with nine sites planned under round three of the UK's offshore wind development programme, in British waters alone.

Tekmar Energy's chief financial officer Phil Heathcock, one of the three members of the management team involved in the buyout alongside chief executive James Ritchie and chairman Colin Turner, said he was massively excited about the opportunity.

"We have seen the statistics, offshore wind in Europe is going to grow by a factor of 50 and our protection system is compatible with all of these," Mr Heathcock said.

"The round three windfarms are a bit further off, although we are starting to talk to people about that and it is a longer term aim.

"In the shorter term we have three major projects to complete by the turn of the year and we are looking at three contract awards by the start of December, which would be a good start for next year's production."

The buyout has received funding support from private equity firm Elysian Capital, which has previous experience of deals in the wind energy sector.

The firm's chief executive Ken Terry said: "Tekmar Energy is a young British company at the forefront of a new industry critical to the future energy needs of the United Kingdom and a sector that is strongly supported by Europe-wide government environmental policy and incentives.

"Elysian will be helping Tekmar's management team to continue to support its customers in this fast-growing and dynamic market."

Every offshore wind turbine requires sub-sea cabling and, therefore, cable protection systems.

The original subsea division of Tekmar, founded in 1985 to manufacture products for the oil and gas industry and based at Faverdale in Darlington, remains under the control of Mr Bland.

The energy division got off to a flying start in its first year, winning a £4.5m contract from German energy company Bard and its fortunes have continued to grow.

Earlier this year it completed its first UK wind farm project, supplying 103 systems to the Walney One wind farm in the Irish Sea, leading to a follow-up contract for 60 systems.