BY TOMMY NETHERY
t.nethery@ulsterherald.com
A RAPIDLY expanding Tyrone construction materials manufacturing company has completed a multi-million pound acquisition of one of its major rivals in a bid to increase it's market share and boost annual turnover to close on £100 million.
The Fivemiletown-based Acheson and Glover announced earlier this week that they had bought over Ballygawley company, Finlay Breton, from Readymix plc, part of the Cemex group, in a deal worth a staggering £33 million.
The acquisition means Acheson and Glover are now one of the largest construction materials manufacturers on the island with the widest concrete product range.
This latest expansion follows the company's purchase last year of the Saintfield-based Seagoe Concrete Products from Hanson plc.
The takeover includes eight sites, most notably Ballygawley and Omagh, throughout Ireland, Scotland and England, which employs upwards on 350 people and has a combined sales value of £37.7 million.
The expansion has almost doubled the group's workforce to 770 and the company's annual turnover to almost £100 million from 13 sites.
The deal is designed to boost output of a range of structural precast concrete products, which up to now have been manufactured exclusively at the company's Magherafelt facilities for major construction projects in England and Wales. Production at the Co. Derry factory will now be supplemented by the newly acquired premises, resulting in a four-fold increase in group precast capacity.
The Cemex deal is the latest stage in growth of the firm, which is soon to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Earlier this year, the Fivemiletown company announced a £7 million investment at its paving plant in Toome and opened a new GB sales centre near Birmingham.
Announcing the purchase of Finlay Breton, Raymond Acheson, managing director of Acheson and Glover said the takeover represented a strategic fit in line with the company's objective of achieving further significant growth.
He said, " Our challenge now is to integrate the new business units into out existing operations to ensure that we are just not bigger but that we are stronger and more profitable as well. Our aim is to do this by providing a range of quality products complemented by exceptional customer service.
"This will be particularly important as we continue to expand our operations in GB where we already compete successfully.
"In the latest phase of our growth, adding production capacity was a crucial factor.
"Another important consideration was that we wanted to further expand our product range which – apart from precast concrete – also includes comprehensive paving, brick and block ranges as well as innovative products such as Anchor retaining walls and Novabrik, a mortarless brick cladding system.
"We believe that many contractors are moving towards sourcing any many product lines as possible from the a single supplier. That is a trend we will be aiming to exploit further in the future."
A spokesman for Cemex group added," The board of Readymix considers that this disposal provides an excellent development platform from which to invest in our core business."
