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Acheson & Glover, the rapidly expanding County Tyrone-based construction materials manufacturer, today announced it has bought the Finlay Breton business from Readymix plc, part of the global Cemex group.
The multimillion-pound acquisition means that Acheson & Glover is now one of the biggest construction materials manufacturers on the island with the widest concrete product range. It follows the company’s purchase last year of Saintfield-based Seagoe Concrete Products from Hanson plc.
The takeover includes eight sites throughout the island of Ireland, Scotland and England which employ 400 people and have combined sales worth approximately £40 million. Their acquisition by Acheson & Glover has doubled the group’s workforce to 800 employees and the company’s annual turnover to close to £100 million, generated from 13 production sites.
The deal is designed to boost output of a range of structural precast concrete products which currently account for around 20 per cent of Acheson & Glover’s turnover. Up to now, these have been manufactured exclusively at the company’s Magherafelt facilities for major construction projects in England and Wales. Production at the County Londonderry factory is now being supplemented by the newly acquired facilities, resulting in a four-fold increase in group precast capacity.
The expansion has also given Acheson & Glover its first production sites in Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland. In addition, it has extended the company’s existing range through the introduction of a number of new products.
The Cemex deal is the latest stage in the growth of the firm which will soon celebrate its 50th anniversary. Earlier this year, the company announced a £7 million investment at its paving plant in Toome, County Antrim and opened a new GB sales centre in Birmingham.
Raymond Acheson, managing director of Acheson & Glover says the latest acquisition represents a perfect strategic fit in line with the company’s objective of achieving further significant growth.
“Our challenge now is to integrate the new business units into our existing operations to ensure that we’re not just bigger but that we’re 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 Great Britain where we already compete successfully.
“In this latest phase of our growth, adding production capacity was a crucial factor. However, another very 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 as many product lines as possible from a single supplier. That is a trend we will be aiming to exploit further in the future,” adds Raymond.
