Doncaster scaffolding business acquired for £2m
A SOUTH Yorkshire scaffolding business has been acquired for £2m by a Welsh group.
Dixon Pentland Scaffolding Company, based in Doncaster, has been bought by SHS Integrated Services, a specialist provider of high specification industrial scaffolding and associated services based in Barry, near Cardiff.
Dixon Pentland provides scaffolding services to the energy and heavy industrial sectors including the National Grid.
SHS financed the acquisition following investment totalling £5.4m made in September 2012 by BGF, the growth capital investors backed by five of the UK’s main banking groups – Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, RBS, and Standard Chartered.
With an annual turnover of £5m, key customers of Dixon Pentland include AMEC, Babcock and Balfour Beatty and the company employs 65 people.
Dixon Pentland represents the first acquisition that SHS has made using BGF capital and the opportunity was introduced to SHS by Grant Thornton Corporate Finance in Cardiff, who also advised on the transaction.
The acquisition will provide SHS with a national platform for expansion into a highly specialised and regulated market.
Founded in 1998 by Paul Smith, SHS erects and dismantles large scale, technically demanding scaffolding structures for clients in the petrochemical, oil and power generation sectors. It also provides complementary insulation services. SHS’s services are often required by site owners, operators and contractors for essential maintenance and refurbishment work to industrial plants.
SHS has secured long term contracts with multinationals such as Dow Corning, Murco and Alstom.
Finance director, Gavin Payne, who led the deal on behalf of SHS, commented: “This is an important step for SHS. Dixon Pentland’s reputation and customer base is a great fit with SHS, opening up new markets and enabling us to provide an even more complete service to our customers. We shall be continuing to work with Grant Thornton and BGF to identify potential further acquisitions to complement and extend our offering in what is a highly-specialised market.”
Paul Oldham, BGF’s regional director for South Wales and the South West of England, commented: “SHS was the first company in Wales that BGF has backed and our investment was made in order to strengthen the company’s core capabilities, develop a broader range of services and expand into new sectors and geographies. Dixon Pentland is a highly complementary acquisition given its reputation in the industry as a well-established, high quality operator and will add considerably to the range of services that SHS is able to offer its clients.”
