Indian investors seek Yorkshire targets
A CASH-rich Indian family group is aiming to make a number of acquisitions in Yorkshire with the aim of creating a £75m turnover group.
Investment vehicle Ardsley Industrial Ventures has been established and has instructed accountancy firm Garbutt & Elliott in Leeds to identify and acquire a series of medium-sized manufacturing companies.
The Indian investors hope that their injection of cash into the companies will help develop the acquisitions into a healthy portfolio.
The family-owned group in India will focus on the manufacturing and industrial sectors in Yorkshire and the North of England.
It has said that it is “not interested” in quick disposals or sales and has said it does not want to asset strip.
So far the team, which also includes Leeds and Sheffield-based solicitors, Keeble Hawson, is understood to have appraised about 10 Yorkshire manufacturing businesses.
It has made one acquisition outside the region, steel fabricator Impactbond, based in Kings Lynn, Norfolk.
Garbutt & Elliott corporate finance director, Richard Feltham, whose Roundhay-based team includes Tariq Javid and Laura Howes, said the Yorkshire professionals were seeking businesses in a wide range of sectors including electronic controls, engineering, aerospace, steel fabrication and nuclear, or sustainable, power generation.
Ardsley Industrial Ventures (UK) has been established and is led by its UK finance director, John Stitchman.
Its executive chairman, former US fund manager, Shayne John, based in Atlanta, USA, is overseeing investment strategy and overall group direction.
Mr Feltham said: “Our brief from Ardsley Industrial Ventures (UK) is to find businesses with a turnover up to £5m which, with the right strategic guidance and funding, can grow and become more profitable.
“They can currently be profitable, break-even, or even loss-making enterprises as long as they have solid potential and we are also keen to talk to those seeking an exit route as they approach retirement or industrial groups seeking to off-load non-core enterprises.
“Ardsley Industrial Ventures (UK) is a cash buyer which is particularly attractive in the current climate when bank funding remains difficult. An important common factor must be that the enterprises have real potential through their in-house expertise, product ingenuity or capacity for further innovation or exploitation.
“As India is now an industrial powerhouse with a fast-growing economy it is heartening that they have chosen to focus on Yorkshire and the North of England – the reason we and Keeble Hawson were appointed – where it believes that a large proportion of the eventual portfolio will ultimately be based.”
