Family healthcare firm expands with acquisition

FAMILY-run dispensing operation Salts Healthcare is expanding after it acquired Oxfordshire-based UCI Healthcare for an undisclosed sum.

Salts Healthcare is a 300 year-old company based in Aston, Birmingham, with offices across the UK, Europe and Ireland and approximately 380 employees.

It is currently run by three brothers from the family’s 10th generation and lays claim to be one of the UK’s oldest family-owned firms.

UCI Healthcare is a dispensing appliance contractor which has three customer care centres with dispensing licences in Charlbury, Oxfordshire, Chesterfield and Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

David White, partner at Grant Thornton in Birmingham who advised Salts on the acquisition, said: “Salts Healthcare has been innovating from its Birmingham base for the past three centuries.

“In addition to designing and producing ground-breaking products, it operates Salts Medilink, one of the largest medical appliance home delivery services in the UK.

“UCI Healthcare is also a leading supplier in the field and this acquisition will enable Salts to grow its market share whilst maintaining the highest levels of service for its patients.”

Salts Healthcare MD Peter Salt said: “We pride ourselves on our research and development – it’s a large percentage of our business.

“We are not a plc, but a small family-owned company that can engage with our markets quickly.

“Join that to our desire for innovation with a highly skilled and dedicated workforce and we hope the Salts name can continue for many hundreds of years to come.”

Salts were also advised on the deal by Katie Silvester, corporate partner from the Birmingham office of law firm HBJ Gateley Wareing.

Picture from left: Export director Robert Salt, CEO Philip Salt, MD Peter Salt, Katie Silvester, Partner HBJ Gateley Wareing, finance director Ian Taylor, and David White, a partner with Grant Thornton.