Acheson & Glover buys Finlay Breton from Readymix

Acheson & Glover has bought the Finlay Breton concrete products manufacturing business from Readymix in a deal that will take the family-owned manufacturer of construction materials' turnover to £100m and widens its concrete products range.

The deal transfers 400 Finlay employees working on eight manufacturing sites throughout the island of Ireland, Scotland and England. Finlay’s annual sales run to £40m.

It will be the first time Acheson has had production sites outside of Northern Ireland. Its headquarters are in County Tyrone.

Prior to the deal, structural precast concrete products accounted for 20% of Acheson’s turnover. They were all produced in Magherafelt, County Londonderry. As a result of Finley coming on board, capacity has been stepped up four-fold.

Last year, Acheson bought Seagoe Concrete Products from Hanson.

Earlier this year Acheson boosted its potential for further organic growth with a £7m investment in its paving plant at Toome, County Antrim.

Raymond Acheson, managing director, said: “Our challenge is to integrate the new business units. We wanted to expand our product range which – apart from precast concrete – includes comprehensive paving, brick and block ranges as well as innovative products such as Anchor retaining walls and Novabrik, a mortarless brick cladding system.

“Many contractors are moving towards sourcing as many product lines as possible from a single supplier. That is a trend we aim to exploit further in the future.”