Plastics specialist bought by FTSE 100 group in £38m deal
FTSE 100 grouip Diploma has bought a North West plastics specialist in a £38m deal.
PAR Group, which is headquartered in Chorley with a second site in Heywood, Greater Manchester, supplies specialist seals and gaskets into a broad range of end markets.
The £13m-turnover business has operated for more than 40 years and employs around 70 people. It has generated pre-tax profits of £4.6m in each of its last two financial years.
Its chief executive Johnny Thomson said: “PAR has an excellent customer-proposition with clear value-add. It’s a fantastic addition to R&G: building capability, further diversifying the customer base, and expanding end markets.”
Diploma is a £1.2bn-turnover international value-add distribution group focused on three sectors – controls, seals and life sciences. It has made nine acquisitions in the past two years.
PAR will form part of Diploma’s UK Aftermarket business in the seals sector. Diploma said the returns in the first year of acquisition will be “well in excess of our cost of capital”.
PAR, which started life as Preston Asbestos and Rubber, has made two acquisitions of its own recently.
It bought Birmingham business Mountford Rubber & Plastics in December 2021 and Guildford-based Aquarius Plastics in March 2023. On both occasions it shut the closed the sites and moved the work to its Northern locations.
