Wed, 04 Jun 2014 | MBO/MBI
Spear & Jackson, the Yorkshire toolmaker that dates back to 1760, has been purchased in a large scale MBO deal.
The business was purchased alongside Pantene Industrial, a contract manufacturing company with a base in Hong Kong and China, by an MBO team headed up by Simon Hsu. The team bought the pair of businesses from its Hong Kong-listed parent, United Pacific Industries.
The complex deal, involving the UK, France, Australia and Hong Kong, was supported by a US$25 million finance arrangement from HSBC.
Based in Sheffield, the Spear & Jackson group has a worldwide workforce of 460. It makes and distributes hand and garden tools, woodworking tools, metrology equipment and magnetic equipment under various brand names. These include: Spear & Jackson, Bowers, Moore and Wright, Robert Sorby, Eclipse, Tyzack and WHS. It also sells a range of garden tools with the name Kew, for Kew Gardens in London.
Other than England, it has operations in France, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and distributes across the globe.
With its 950-strong workforce, Pantene Industrial offers original equipment manufacture and electronic manufacturing services to its international client base from its premises in Shenzhen, China.
The MBO will see the two businesses progress through organic growth and acquisition. Simon Hsu said: “The deal was complex, being multi-currency and multi-jurisdiction and having the additional complication of the regulatory aspects of a UK-based defined benefit pension plan that had to be addressed in completing the transaction.”
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