Fisher in £5m nuclear services swoop

NORTH West marine and engineering services group James Fisher hit the acquisition trail today with deal to buy a Lancashire company for up to £5.25m.

Barrow-in-Furness-based Fisher is buying MB Faber, which has its head office in Leyland for an initial £4m in cash, with a further £1.25m payable in March next year if the company’s earnings top £1.225m by the end of this calendar year.

Faber provides specialist electrical and engineering services to the nuclear and aerospace industries.

It will be integrated with James Fisher’s existing nuclear decommissioning business, James Fisher Nuclear (JFN) which designs and builds remote handling devices for nuclear decommissioning.

Faber  has satellite operations close to Sellafield in Cumbria. It currently employs 120 specialist engineers and has been in the nuclear business since 1988.

Its turnover in 2008 was £6.8m with an adjusted EBITDA of £522,000.

Tim Harris, chairman of James Fisher said: “Faber will strengthen our nuclear decommissioning team and business which has been performing strongly in recent times”.

E C Hambro Rabben & Partners acted as corporate adviser to James Fisher.