Announcing the deal Brand-Rex CEO Paul Lines said, “Brand-Rex has enjoyed a phenomenal period of investment and revitalisation during its last two years of ownership by California based private equity firm Gores Group which has invested over £10million into Brand-Rex. Private equity ownership has been a real success for us and has put us firmly on track to be a £100million business by 2010. This new deal will give us ongoing stability and funding for growth.
“Murray Capital, the private equity arm of Murray International Holdings, headed by David D Murray, was very keen to bring ownership of the company back to Scotland and of course saw Brand-Rex as a very good investment opportunity. They also were highly impressed with the turnaround in sales and profitability under the current management team. Accordingly we structured an acquisition that allowed management to be director owners as well as operational directors which will strengthen the focus on success even further.”
In a deal worth almost £30million, Murray Capital has committed to the next three years investment plan and beyond, ensuring the company will be able to continue its growth and continual-improvement manufacturing plans.
David Murray said “Backing excellent management teams in traditional economy sectors such as manufacturing and business services both in Scotland and the UK is our primary focus. We see enormous potential in the Brand-Rex business. Brand-Rex is already a global player in the highly sophisticated communications infrastructure and specialty cables markets and we believe that it has the management talent and resources to become the market leader. Murray Capital is a long term investor and we believe in creating businesses of scale and strength. This is a business ethic maintained throughout our wider Murray Group. It is one of the reasons our Group has become one of the largest and most successful family owned Groups in Scotland.”
Brand-Rex employs 390 people at its sites in Scotland, England and within its global sales offices. The data communications business, based at Glenrothes in Scotland, supplies high performance cabling systems to support IT networks for a variety of market sectors including finance, government and education. A facility at Leigh in Lancashire supports the company’s speciality cables business, supplying niche cables for automotive, rail, aerospace and defence applications. Much of Brand-Rex’s sales are exported and the company has representative offices throughout Europe, the Middle East and South East Asia.
Concludes Murray, “The strength of the management team at Brand-Rex and the fact they have presided over a steady rate of growth since restructuring the business in 2003 made this an attractive proposition. We have structured the transaction in such a way that enabled the management team to take part ownership of the business – a factor which we believe will serve to drive the business forward faster and even more successfully.”.
As part of the acquisition Murray Capital introduced the team to The Royal Bank of Scotland who provided a flexible debt solution that, very importantly, provides Brand-Rex with a working capital facility which will fuel sustained growth of the business in the months and years to come.”