Marlowe blazes ahead with acquisitions

(ShareCast News) - Having completed four acquisitions in the first half and a further two post period end to expand its presence in both its fire and water divisions, Marlowe has announced plans to raise around £10m to support its continued acquisition-led growth. After merging with the new Marlowe Holdings guise of Lord Ashcroft's Shellshock cash shell in April, before beginning an acquisition spree.Swift, a fire and security systems company, formed the basis of a fire division, to which was added Fire Alarm Fabrication Services in May; before adding Hentland and Titan in the second half of the year. The company formed a water division through the acquisition of WCS, a provider of integrated water treatment, hygiene, testing and engineering services and H2O, a provider of integrated water treatment, hygiene and testing services.All acquisitions were said to be performing in line with expectations with encouraging momentum in cross-selling services between fire and water divisions, according to the board.The board said they felt that the group has the potential to expand due to its "well-developed and attractive" pipeline of opportunities.For the six months ended 30 September 2016 revenue was £17.7m compared to zero in the six months ended 31 March 2016. Profit before tax was £1.3m up from a loss of £0.1m.Chief executive Alex Dacre said: "We made good strategic and operational progress in the first six months of our first year of trading as Marlowe plc. We completed four acquisitions, and a further two since the period-end, providing us with a strong platform for growth in our initial target markets of fire protection, security systems and water treatment services."The integration of these acquisitions is proceeding to plan and we have a well-developed pipeline of attractive opportunities to add further scale to Marlowe as we implement our strategy of building a leading UK support services group in complementary areas of critical asset maintenance. The second half year has started well and we have revised our budget upwards to reflect recent trading and acquisitions. We are confident of making further progress through the second half of the year."The share price rose 6.55% to 309p at 09398 GMT on Monday.