£40m turnover supply chain specialist acquired in new deal

A £40m turnover automotive and aerospace supply chain specialist has been acquired in a new deal.

Stoke-on-Trent based Active Supply Holdings provides indirect supply chain management services to large manufacturers in the automotive, aerospace and energy industries.

The firm, which was founded in 1999, has been acquired by Warrington-based IESA, the Gresham Private Equity-backed business process outsourcer. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Active’s customers include OEMs such as Michelin, Rolls-Royce, Siemens and Toyota. The firm enjoyed a record year in 2016 with revenue exceeding £40m.

IESA, with revenues of £180m in 2016, provides integrated procurement (sourcing and buying indirect goods) and operations (inventory and stores management). These are delivered through a cloud-enabled technology platform.

Strong across the UK and Ireland, IESA launched a German operation in 2014 and is expanding elsewhere in Europe and beyond.

Richard Bennell, managing director, Active, said the company had had no plans to sell up but the IESA approach made sense.

“We’ve achieved massive growth in revenues since our management buyout in July 2014 and have recently set up a subsidiary in the Far East to take advantage of opportunities in those markets,” he said.

“We had no intention of selling Active, however, the case for merging Active into the IESA Group was convincing. There is such a great fit between our two businesses and the combined group will provide our clients with even more comprehensive and compelling solutions.”

Ian Riggs, Hill DickinsonActive was advised by corporate finance advisers, Strategic Corporate Finance (Andrew Coates and Marianne Martin), solictors Hill Dickinson (Ian Riggs – left- and James Down) and accountants and tax advisers, DTE Group (Richard Taylor and George Lovell).

All three firms had acted previously on the Active management buyout in 2014.

Solicitors Gunnercooke (Mark Whittaker) and KPMG (Umar Aziz), financial due diligence, acted for IESA.
The deal sees two of the three Active shareholders, Mr Bennell and Operations Director Ian Whinray, become IESA shareholders and both have joined the IESA management team.

Commenting on the transaction, Glenn Timms, IESA CEO said: “We have admired (Active) for some time, particularly with regard to its sector and OEM expertise.

“Since IESA’s inception in 2001 and particularly since our MBO in 2012, our disruptive indirect supply chain model and associated technology platform has been gaining increasing traction in the market place, both historically in the UK and Ireland, and more recently across Continental Europe and beyond.

“Following our revenue reaching £180m last year, we are currently enjoying a record year for new business wins, and the IESA platform now supports in excess of 70 major clients and over 27,000 vendors.”

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