The Friday Interview:Raymond Acheson is not worried about reports that house building has slowed although you might think he should be, writes Barry O'Halloran.

This week, his construction supplies company, Acheson & Glover, took a €49 million bet on the industry in both Ireland and Britain, when it bought the Finlay Breton precast concrete business from Readymix.

In one fell swoop, the deal doubled the number of his family-owned company's staff to 800, added a range of sites in Ireland and Britain and will add close to €60 million to the annual turnover, bringing it to the €150 million mark.

It's a big punt at a time when opinion about the building industry is divided, with some economists saying it's going the wrong way, and others arguing that there's still scope for plenty of growth in the next few years.

Either way, Acheson is sanguine. "Everybody will be experiencing some sort of slowdown," he says, "but we have not bought this business with a view to six months up the road - this is a long-term investment for us. What happens in the next six months or a year is immaterial.

"What we're seeing now is a short-term blip, and we were probably spoiled in recent years because the market was so strong and buoyant. In some ways, the fact that things have slowed is good, because it could not have kept going."

Acheson & Glover certainly played a long game when it came to acquiring Finlay Breton.

The Fivemiletown, Co Tyrone-based business first approached Readymix with a view to buying the business a year ago, and the two companies worked on the deal from that point.

In June, publicly quoted Readymix announced that it was in talks with a potential buyer and the whisper in the market was that it was a player based in the North. This week both sides announced the deal.

Acheson says that last year, he and his colleagues were on the look-out for a deal of scale. They were aware that Dublin-based Readymix, in which Mexican giant Cemex had recently taken a majority stake, was looking at selling part of its businesses.

"We worked out what was for sale and what wasn't, and went from there," he says. The deal is strategic from Acheson & Glover's point of view. It will add to their product range, bring in new manufacturing and sales sites, and broaden its geographic spread.

Until now, the company has had a sales operation in the Republic, but no actual production sites. Finlay Breton will give it such bases in Waterford and Wicklow. It will also broaden its presence in the North.

In Britain, Acheson & Glover already has an outlet in Birmingham and a presence in the English midlands. Finlay Breton will widen this to both the south and north of England and Scotland, via a site in Glasgow.

The nature of Acheson & Glover's products, cement, precast concrete, concrete flooring, bricks and other such materials, means that production generally needs to be close to markets, as they are heavy and expensive to transport. So new bases mean new territories and markets.

The firm has grown consistently from the roots it put down more than 30 years ago as a quarrying operation founded by Acheson's father, Harry Acheson, who is now chairman, and his business partner, Norman Glover.

Acheson says the firm has taken a twin approach to development, using both organic expansion and acquisitions, where appropriate and, more importantly, where the right opportunities have arisen.

It expanded quickly from quarried products into concrete and from there on into the full range of building and structural components. "At this stage, we are in a position to supply most products," Acheson says.

The firm invests between €10 million and €15 million a year in developing its businesses, and has bought rivals along the way as well.

Last year, it bought Seagoe Concrete in Saintfield, Co Down from multi-national Hanson plc.

In the early Nineties, it bought the concrete division of Lees Group, a Magherafelt, Co Derry, building supplies player that went into receivership in a high-profile insolvency. It also bought Northern Brick from Redland plc.

Finlay Breton is its biggest deal to date.

The next step will be integrating it into Acheson & Glover's existing operations. This will be done without rationalisation over the next six months or so. "That's the next challenge we've got," Acheson says.

On The Record

Name:Raymond Acheson.

Age:52.

Job:Managing director of building supplies firm, Acheson & Glover, Fivemiletown, Co Tyrone.

Why is he in the news?Acheson & Glover this week bought the Finlay Breton pre-cast concrete business from Readymix plc for €49 million. It's the biggest deal in the company's 30-year history and will boost sales by 40 per cent to about €150 million.

Something that might surprise:He's a big Formula One fan and travels to races.

Something that might not surprise: After spending a year at university, he decided to return and work in the family business that he now runs.