Jobs saved as historic engineering firm bought out of administration

Booth Industries
Booth Industries

Just under 100 jobs appear to have been saved after a historic engineering firm was bought out of administration.

Booth Industries, which is based in Bolton, has been bought for £1.8m by Avingtrans – which has its headquarters in Huntingdon.

Booth Industries firm was founded in 1873 and was originally a blacksmith. It has been making blast doors for the last 40 years.

It was previously owned by Redhall Group plc, which was placed into administration on 10 June 2019.

It was acquired from administrators Christopher Petts and Sarah O’Toole of Grant Thornton UK LLP, who are acting for Redhall Group.

Booth Industries’ employs 90 people in Bolton, operating across four sites.

Metalcraft, a sub-division of Avingtrans, has acquired the main Booth facility and secured licenses to operate across the other three local site locations.

AIM listed Avingtrans designs, manufactures and supplies original equipment, systems and associated aftermarket services for the energy and medical sectors.

Avingtrans announced the acquisition of the trade and certain assets of Booth Industries Limited for a total consideration of £1.8m.

Booth has a total of 90 employees and focuses on the design and manufacture of blast doors and prefabricated fire and blast wall systems, fire doors (integrity and insulated) for both off and on-shore applications, radiation shielding doors, acoustic doors, security doors, multi-performance and large bespoke doors.

Booth’s products are sold into a range of markets including offshore oil and gas, marine, rail and infrastructure, tunnels and mining, security and counter terrorism, aviation, nuclear, commercial and industrial, spares, maintenance and repairs.

Avingtrans acquired Booth from Christopher Petts and Sarah O’Toole of Grant Thornton who were acting for AIM-quoted Redhall Group, which was placed into administration on 10 June 2019.

The total consideration of £1.8m is to be satisfied in cash, funded from the company’s existing resources.

In the year to 30 September 2018, Booth recorded revenues of approximately £11.7m and profit before tax of approximately £300,000.

Acquired net assets totalled approximately £2.5m as at the transaction date, excluding Booth’s existing cash and the company’s debtor book.

It is intended that Booth will be integrated within Avingtrans’ process solutions and rotating equipment (PSRE) division.

Austen Adams, managing director of Avingtrans’ PSRE division, said: “The nature of the Booth Industries business is akin to existing businesses in our division, with some Booth customers overlapping with those of our Metalcraft and Peter Brotherhood businesses.

“The PSRE Division is already home to a number of great British engineering brands and we are confident in our abilities to restore Booth Industries to a clear leadership position in its chosen market niches.”

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