Members of the Creaven business family in Co Clare have acquired a Shannon-based analytical instruments company, in which they have a long involvement, from its US parent.
In business since 1965, Gow-Mac Instrument Company (Ireland) was renamed AGC Instruments after the family members acquired the enterprise from its Pennsylvania-based parent Gow-Mac Instrument Company for an undisclosed sum. The deal closed last month.
Sales director Cormac Creaven led the buyout of the company, which makes equipment to measure industrial gases for quality control purposes. He was backed in the deal by his mother Herriette and father Louis Creaven, who is managing director of the company.
Their brother and son Dylan Creaven, who has no involvement in the business, came to prominence this month when he made a settlement of €26.5 million with the Criminal Assets Bureau and Britain's Assets Recovery Agency following a VAT fraud investigation.
Dylan Creaven agreed to the settlement - which also involved the forfeiture of a villa in Marbella, a flat in the Knightsbridge area of London and four racehorses - after he was acquitted by a jury in a trial last year at Blackfriars Crown Court.
The investigation centred on the affairs of Silicon Technologies Europe, a company engaged in the manufacture of computer components in which Dylan Creaven and Louis Creaven were directors. They were shareholders in the business through their interest in a separate company called Bradenville Holdings.
There is no suggestion that Louis Creaven was involved in the dealings that led to Dylan Creaven's settlement with the Irish and British authorities. Dylan Creaven and his companies denied wrongdoing.
The latest available abridged accounts for Gow-Mac Instrument Company (Ireland) indicate that it accumulated profits of €564,515 after the financial year to June 2005.
Cormac Creaven declined to discuss the buyback deal in any detail but said there was no connection between the timing of the transaction and his brother's case. Jeffrey Lawson, the president and chief executive of Gow-Mac's parent company, declined to comment on the deal.
In a statement for gas industry media, Marcus Creaven said AGC would put a strong emphasis into local ground support with clients in Europe, the Middle East and southeast Asia. "2007 will see new products launched to increase AGC's turnkey capabilities with particular emphasis on the Pacific Rim and Americas market," he said.
