Carr’s swoops on German robotic company
CARLISLE food and engineering company Carr’s Milling Industries has acquired German robotics company Hans Wälischmiller for £4.9m from administrators.
The group said Hans Wälischmiller would complement its Swindon-based Carrs MSM division, which supplies remote handling equipment to research companies and the nuclear industry.
Both Carrs MSM and Hans Wälischmiller, which has 70 employees, are already suppliers to British Nuclear Group.
Carr’s said the acquisition would open up opportunities to share design and technical knowledge, as well as expand the customer base of both businesses. It added that it expected the acquisition to be earnings enhancing within the first full year.
For the nine months to the end of December 2008, the period when Hans Wälischmiller was in administration, it made a pre-tax loss €186,000 on sales of €5.2m. The gross assets of the Business are €4.5m (£4.0m).
In a trading update, Carr’s said the 26 weeks to the end of February 2009 will be similar to the first half of last year, when a pre-tax profit of £5.2m was reported on revenue of £161.9m.
It said this was “despite conditions in the markets in which the group operates becoming more difficult in the later weeks”.
