Carrs Group Regulatory News (CARR)

24 Feb 2009 07:00



Tuesday 24 February 2009

CARR'S MILLING INDUSTRIES PLC 

Acquisition/Update on Trading

Acquisition

Carr's (CRM.L), the agriculture, food and engineering group, announces that yesterday, Monday 23 February 2009, it entered into an agreement to acquire on 1 March 2009 the trade and assets of the remote handling technology, robotics and radiation protection equipment business (the "Business") from the Administrator appointed to Hans Wälischmiller GmbH ("Hans Wälischmiller").

The consideration for the Business is €5.5m (£4.9m) in cash, of which €2.8m (£2.6m) is expected to be payable during March 2009. The assets acquired comprise the property (€2.0m), plant and machinery (€0.5m), inventory (€2.0m) and all intellectual property and goodwill (€1.0m) of the Business. €2.0m of the deferred consideration is payable by 31 August 2009 and €0.7m on receipt of progress payments on an order for remote handling technology. The consideration will be satisfied by new bank funding and the Group's existing bank facilities.

The Business complements Swindon-based Carrs MSM, which supplies remote handling equipment to the nuclear industry and research establishments. The Business is based in Markdorf in Southern Germany and has 70 employees. Both the Business and Carrs MSM are suppliers to British Nuclear Group.

The acquisition will benefit the Group's engineering business through:

expansion of the customer base of both the UK and German businesses;

opportunities to share design and technical knowledge; and

utilisation of the Business' machining capability.

Prior to 1 January 2009, the Business was part of a group of companies and did not prepare separate accounts. For the nine months ended 31 December 2008, the period when Hans Wälischmiller was in Administration, the Business made a loss before tax of €186,000 on sales of €5.2m. The gross assets of the Business are €4.5m (£4.0m).

The transaction is expected to be earnings enhancing for the Company in the first full year following acquisition.

Prior to being taken into Administration in March 2008, Hans Wälischmiller operated as an engineering company. Some of the other divisions of Hans Wälischmiller have been separately sold by the Administrator.

Current Trading

Trading in the 26 weeks to 28 February 2009 is expected to be broadly similar to the first half of last year (when a pre-tax profit of £5.2m was reported on revenue of £161.9m) despite conditions in the markets in which the Group operates becoming more difficult in the later weeks, as advised in the Company's Interim Management Statement, on 6 January 2009.

The Group proposes to issue its Interim Announcement on Monday 6 April 2009.

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