INDUSTRIAL SERVICES group DCC has acquired Swedish fuel distributor Swea Energi.

The listed group will pay €22.7 million upfront in cash for the business which is owned by Lennart and Viviann Hansson and is debt free.

A further €6.6 million may become payable depending on the performance of the group between March next year and the end of March 2013, possibly bringing the final cost to €29.3 million.

The acquisition is conditional on approval from the European Commission.

Swea Energi, based near Gothenburg, is the leading distributor of heating oils and transport fuels to domestic, commercial and industrial customers in Sweden.

It employs some 54 staff and sells up to 500 million litres of oil per annum. It fuel transport operations are outsourced to a number of regional hauliers.

The company reported an an operating profit before tax of €5.5 million in 2010.

In a statement to the Irish Stock Exchange, DCC said it expected the deal to close early next year, assuming it is sanctioned by the European Commission.

DCC chief executive Tommy Breen said the acquisition was a “significant expansion” of the Irish group’s oil distribution business in Scandinavia and built on the company purchase of Shells’s oil distribution business in Denmark in 2009.

DCC paid €14 million in that deal.

“With a strong local management team to be led by Lennart Hansson and the benefit of DCC’s experience in oil distribution, we look forward to growing Swea in the Swedish market over the coming years and continuing to develop a substantial position in oil distribution in Scandinavia,” he said.

DCC has spent more than €150 million this year in a series of bolt-on acquisitions to its fuels business, mostly in the UK.