A NORTHERN-BASED, engineering services firm has been acquired by an Australian company in a deal estimated to be worth more than £100 million.
The Newtownabbey, Co Antrim, based Rotary Group, one of the North's most successful family-run businesses, has been bought by the Australian-quoted Hastie Group.
Rotary specialises in providing a range of essential building services from air conditioning to mechanical, electrical and maintenance services. The company, which was established in 1954 by Dr Gerald Jennings, currently employs more than 2,000 people in eight countries. Last year Rotary posted a turnover of £238 million and its 2007 EBIT was £10.9 million.
Although the majority of its core business is located in the United Kingdom and the Republic, it has won a significant number of high-profile contracts overseas, which has helped boost profits.
Rotary has a 20-year history of doing business throughout Africa; it has been involved in a number of hospital projects and won an award for its work on a Mormon temple in Ghana. The group also has a track record providing specialist services for government embassies throughout the world.
In recent years it has won a number of contracts in Iraq, including a major business deal for the provision of services to the British embassy in Baghdad.
It was also the only firm outside of the US to be shortlisted to provide services to the American embassy in Baghdad.
Other projects Rotary has been involved in include a £40 million hospital in Gibraltar, the construction of a cigarette factory for Gallaher in Kazakhstan and a multi-million pound contract with the Hotel Atlantis in Dubai. More than 50 years after it was established the Rotary Group still remains privately owned and in the control of the publicity-shy and highly private Jennings family.
It is managed by its founder's sons; Shamus Jennings, who is Rotary's chief executive officer, and the group's chairman Dr Francis Jennings.
The company rarely courts publicity of any kind but it has developed very strong links with the University of Ulster's School of the Built Environment. Dr Jennings has been credited with helping the university develop its international profile and received the degree of Doctor of Science in recognition of his contribution to business in the North and his support for the university.
The Jennings family also own CUSP in the North, an award winning urban regeneration property development company.
The company's property portfolio has been valued at more than £500 million.
Under the terms of the deal with Hastie Group, one of Australia's leading commercial, industrial air-conditioning, refrigeration, electrical and hydraulics group, Rotary will continue to trade under its own name. The Hastie Group, which employs around 4,000 people, has described the deal as a sign of its further expansion into the UK.
It says the acquisition, which involves a combination of a cash payment of £70 million and 14.7 million Hastie shares, is expected to be completed by April.
Hastie said both Shamus and Francis Jennings, the majority shareholders in Rotary, have committed to remain actively involved in the business.
The Jennings family will now become the largest individual shareholder in the newly-combined group, which will have more than 6,000 employees, and joint annualised revenues in the region of £700 million. David Harris, Hastie Group managing director and ceo, described the rationale for the deal as "compelling".
