US company buys Staffordshire contractor

A refractory contractor headquartered in Burntwood has been acquired by a US-based family business.

Massachusetts-based Zampell Holdings has acquired Cobb Lloyd Refractories Limited of Burntwood, advised by the Birmingham office of chartered accountants Haines Watts.

Cobb Lloyd will merge with Zampell UK affiliate, which provides installation and engineering services in the refractories industry, before the brand is merged into one under the Zampell name. Zampell also has operations in Denmark.

Cobb Lloyd managing director Graeme Corbet, who will continue managing the operation, said: “The acquisition will allow Cobb Lloyd and Zampell to share the wealth of experience and knowledge across the industries in which we work – in particular the waste-to-energy, bio-mass and incineration sectors”.

Dating back to 1965, Cobb Lloyd undertook dense refractory installations in the power generation industries, as well as constructing industrial chimneys. It expanded from Northern Ireland to the UK in 1999, and merged with Lloyd Refractory Insulation Systems in 2011.

Gary Dukes, managing director of Zampell’s operations in Europe, said: “We are confident that with Graeme and his team, coupled with our great employees and products in Denmark and England, we have the best capability in the market for maintaining our customers’ facilities. Through our process of continuous improvement, we will strive to be even better.”