Thyssen (Great Britain) sold to Meade Corporation

The German mining and tunnelling group Thyssen Schachtbau has sold its £60m-a-year turnover UK construction business to the Meade Corporation. There will be no job losses.

Keith Jessup, who continues as managing director of Thyssen (GB), said that there will be a name change. "It was a condition of the sale," Jessup pointed out. The new name is yet to be chosen.

The parent company decided that UK construction was no longer a core business area. It invited third-party offers and investigated the possibility of a management buy-out, but that option failed to materialise.

Almost two-thirds of Thyssen (GB)'s turnover comes from civil engineering contracts, the average size being £1.5m. The largest current project runs to £10m. Other areas of work include building, geotechnical, concrete repairs and trenchless technology. This year's turnover is expected to generate a profit of £1m.

Thyssen (GB) is a national player with a headquarters in Pontefract, Yorkshire and offices in Bangor (covering north Wales), Swansea and Stoke-on-Trent.

The new owner is the Meade Corporation. Based in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, it
has a wide range of subsidiaries covering insulated power cables, masts and bracings for football stadia as well as crane manufacture.

Meade plans to make Thyssen (GB) its main driver for expansion into the construction sector in the UK.