John Mowlem cleans up with Pall Mall deal

John Mowlem has bought Pall Mall, a cleaning services company, for £42m. It will operate within Mowlem's support services division, which will find its turnover boosted to about £310m as a result of the move.

Mowlem chief executive John Gains said: "Pall Mall meets all of the criteria we look for in a potential acquisition. It is a strong support services business that offers us a higher-margin, reliable and long-term income stream.

"It operates in a sector adjacent to our present business, therefore adding to our capacity to offer fully integrated solutions and falling within our sphere of operational expertise."

Pall Mall has about 10,000 employees and operates out of offices in London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham and Newport. It was founded in 1915 as a window cleaning company and was bought by Davis Service in 1968. When Davis sold the other parts of its business to Granada in 1997, Pall Mall went its own way as the result of a management buyout led by David Woods, the existing managing director.

Pall Mall will operate as a sister company to Aqumen, Mowlem's facilities management subsidiary. Its current management team will be retained.

Latest figures for Pall Mall (six months to May 2001) show a pre-tax profit of £2.3m on a turnover of £52m. A Mowlem spokesman said: "Mowlem's strategic objective is that by 2004, earnings will be split 50:50 between construction and support services."