Balfour sells Andover Controls for £220m

Balfour Beatty has sold its Andover Controls subsidiary for £220m. The buyer is Schneider Electric, the French power and control group.

Andover Controls designs, manufacturers and supplies building management controls and security systems. Its applications include remote monitoring, CCTV and digital recording.

It was acquired by BICC [at that time Balfour's parent group] back in 1986 when the cable manufacturing conglomerate wanted to build up an electronics division and set about acquiring a presence in the market for "bright things to do at the end of cables".

Despite all parts of the BICC empire dissolving in subsequent years apart from the group's former construction wing, Balfour Beatty, the Andover Controls business has been kept running as it generated good money - last year's turnover of £95m resulted in an operating profit of £16m.

But the offer of a 14-times exit multiple (ie ratio of price offered: annual profits) was too good to resist.

A Balfour spokesman said: "We already had over £100m of new cash at the year end, so we won't sit and look at the [new] money in the bank. It will be invested in the likes of PFI equity and acquisitions."