Lavendon buys Blue Sky Access

Rental company, Lavendon Group head quartered in the UK has bought Blue Sky Access Ltd. Blue Sky designs and engineers products to improve efficiency and safety in the use of powered access equipment and has been working with Lavendon since 2008

Lavendon says the acquisition is a further step in delivering its strategy of creating points of differentiation between the Group and the market place.

The latest unaudited accounts for Blue Sky for the year ended 31 December 2010 showed revenue of £0.4 million, a profit before tax of £0.1 million and gross assets of £0.3 million.

Lavendon will pay £3.4 million in cash on completion and a deferred consideration of £1.5 million and £1.0 million will become payable in cash by Lavendon on 18 October 2012 and 18 October 2013, respectively. Further consideration of up to £1.5 million could become payable over the next four years dependent upon future revenue generation. Should Lavendon decide to licence Blue Sky technology outside its current territories of operation in the three years following the acquisition, a percentage of the associated profits will be payable to Blue Sky's current shareholders.

The acquisition will be funded from Lavendon's existing bank facilities, and, as part of the transaction, Lavendon will assume Blue Sky's net cash of £0.4 million.

Lavendon's chairman, John Standen, said, "We are delighted to have completed the acquisition of Blue Sky. We look forward to continuing to work with the existing senior management team, all of whom will be retained, utilising their expertise and experience to develop further our service offering to our customers, in turn strengthening our position as the leading powered access rental company in Europe and the Middle East."

Many of Blue Sky's products represent intellectual property and are protected by existing and pending patents, the latest anti-entrapment development, the Sky Siren,has been trialed successfully by a number of Lavendon's customers. This design provides Lavendon with a safety product capable of being widely marketed to a number of different end-user sectors. Initially, this product will be made available to Lavendon's UK customers and, during 2012, will gradually become available in the Group's other geographical markets in Europe and the Middle East.