Solid State buys southern electronics firm for £2.1m

WORCESTERSHIRE-based industrial computer and electronics group Solid State has bought Ginsbury Electronics.

The Redditch firm has acquired the entire issued share capital of Signregion Limited (Kent-based Ginsbury’s holding company), for £2.125m subject to an adjustment of net asset value once completion accounts have been finalised.

£1.6m of the cash consideration will be paid on completion from the company’s existing bank facilities with a further £525,000 payable in three equal six monthly tranches.
 
Ginsbury specialises in the supply of high quality display components, monitors, panels, signage and power components to the commercial, retail, industrial and military markets throughout the UK and Europe.
 
For the 12 months to 31 December 2014, Ginsbury generated unaudited profits before interest and tax of £461,000 on turnover of £3.9m. As at 31 December 2014 it had unaudited net assets of approximately £1.7m, of which £1.044m was cash and £383,000 was tangible assets.

AIM-listed Solid State expects that Ginsbury will make a positive contribution to the performance of the group as a whole in the year ending 31 March 2016.
 
Gary Marsh, Chief Executive of Solid State, said: “The Ginsbury business will supplement and enhance our offering in the display area which will further extend the ruggedised solutions that we are able to offer our client base.

“It will additionally allow us to more effectively develop our range of higher unit cost products and create further opportunities for value added services in the distribution division.”

Law firm Shakespeares advised Solid State on the deal.

Meanwhile, Solid State has issued a trading update and suggests its results for the year ended 31 March 2015 will be significantly better than last year.

“Profit before taxation for the year ended 31 March is expected to be at least in line with market expectations although revenue is expected to be slightly lower principally due to exiting certain low margin, high volume business in the LED market during the year,” it said.
 
“The directors are confident that further progress and growth will be achieved in the current financial year.” 

Solid State said the financial year commences with an open order book of £18.5m (30 April 2014: £14.7m) and an encouraging level of enquiries.

The year will also benefit from the first material contributions from the three year contract with the Ministry of Justice, awarded last year, to supply monitoring hardware for GPS offender tagging, it added.