Dandy’s Topsoil buys coal business
A FLINTSHIRE top soil and aggregates supplier has acquired a Wirral coal merchants and plans to expand the business nationwide.
Family-run business Dandy’s Topsoil, based in Sealand Flintshire, has bought H&M Taylor Coal Merchants, which has locations in Heswell and Connahs Quay, for a five figure sum, safeguarding two jobs.
Adam Dandy, who owns Dandy’s Topsoil and is the great, great grandson of the firm’s founder, plans to expand the coal merchants operation nationwide with a new website, www.CoalandLogs.com, and acquire bigger premises to accommodate the growth in 2010.
Mr Dandy, who runs the business with his wife Clare, said: “We are traditionally a seasonal business, which is always very busy in the summer months but quieter in the winter, and this acquisition should even out the highs and lows throughout the year.”
Dandy’s Topsoil, which was established in 1826 by James Dandy, now employs a team of 25 people and has a £2.2m turnover. Today the company supplies topsoil as well as aggregates, turf, bark, compost and other landscaping materials, both online and in-store.
H&M Taylor is a family business which sells a range of coal, logs, kindling and fire lighters and delivers to customers, including more than 1,000 regulars, in Wirral, Cheshire, Flintshire and Denbighshire.
The deal was financed by Yorkshire Bank’s Financial Solutions Centre in Liverpool.
Yorkshire Bank’s Mike Scott arranged the finance for the acquisition.
He said: “Dandy’s Topsoil is a well established and well run family business, which simply needed to secure a year round revenue stream to finance its growth plans.”
