American automotive supplier buys manufacturer
Cannock’s ATP Industries Group has announced it is to offload a trio of its businesses to US-based ATC Drivetrain, a remanufacturer of automotive components.
The three businesses being sold are ATP Automotive Transmission Remanufacturing Specialists Limited, ATP Electronic Developments Limited and ATP Holdings USA LLC.
Collectively, the companies are known as ATP, and reported combined revenues of £12.6m and EBITDA of £2.1m in the year to 30 April 2018.
Staffordshire’s ATP Industries Group was founded in 1969 by former coal mining engineer Alan Smart. The companies specialise in automatic transmissions, including torque converters and automated manual transmissions, electronics and diagnostics systems.
It includes Ford, Volvo, Fiat-Chrysler, Aston Martin and JCB among its customers, and in 2016 won the Queen’s Award for Innovation.
ATP’s founder and major shareholder Alan Smart was advised on the cross-border sale by Roy Farmer and Rob Wilson of Dains Corporate Finance and Lodders Solicitors.
Alan Smart said: “Having founded ATP in 1969, this year marks ATP’s 50th year in business and I felt it was an appropriate time to secure the next phase of ATP’s continued growth.
“The exciting combination of ATC and ATP will allow for ATP to increase the ways in which we can serve our customers and secures the future of ATP’s employees, many of whom have over 30 years of service.
“I am confident that ATC is the right home for my life’s work and that ATP will continue to flourish under its new ownership.”
Lead advisor Roy Farmer from Dains Corporate Finance added: “As a firm we have worked with ATP for over ten years and have been working closely with Alan during this period to develop his exit plans.
“We identified the US-based remanufacturer ATC as a potential acquirer at an early stage and it quickly became apparent once we had met with them that they would be a great fit with ATP, both strategically and culturally.
“The combination of ATP and ATC has created a group with over 130 years of global automotive remanufacturing experience and allows it to better provide products and services to its growing customer base around the world.”
Greg Heald, ATC’s president and CEO and member of its board of directors said: “The teams at ATC and our private equity sponsor Crestview Partners have a great deal of respect for Alan Smart and for the decades of hard work he has committed to building ATP as its founder and chairman.
“Alan’s vision has driven the growth and evolution of ATP from its beginning 50 years ago to its position today as a leader in the remanufacturing industry.
“We are excited to bring together these two companies which complement each other in the areas of technology, footprint and customer base, and also shares common core values focused on providing market leading service to our customers.”
Corporate finance advice was provided to ATP by Roy Farmer & Rob Wilson of Dains Corporate Finance and tax advice by David Bradshaw, Caroline Bland and Chris Weston of Dains LLP.
Legal advice was provided by Mark Lewis, Nicole Romera and Steven Baker of Lodders Solicitors. Greenberg Traurig provided legal advice to ATC, with financial due diligence provided by PwC.
