Canadian company swoops for groundworks specialist

A Canadian company has acquired Exeter-based groundworks specialist Belowground Contracts.

GoliathTech Piles has agreed to buy the company, founded by Alistair Garden in 2006, for a seven-figure sum.

With its head office located in Exeter, Belowground has worked with high-profile clients in the private and public sectors, including Co-Op, BMW, Next, Network Rail and the NHS, and the company has also featured on TV programmes such as Homes Under The Hammer, Grand Designs and The Restoration Man.

Garden will stay with Belowground in an operations director role for the next three years and potentially longer, as the company integrates the practices.

“They are already very well established in Canada and the United States with more than 150 franchisees and are now branching out into the UK and France,” said Garden.

“GoliathTech manufactures and franchise piling equipment, so Belowground is changing to a new format of adopting solely one technique.

“When I first started looking into selling the company, I never imagined there would be interest from overseas.”

Belowground Contracts was advised by KBS Corporate.

KBS Corporate deal executive Charles Needham said: “GoliathTech have gained more UK presence through a horizontal acquisition.

“Alistair and I had a great relationship throughout the deal and it was nice to see a successful sale be completed.”