Northern Bear pays £5m for Leeds-based Jenings Roofing

Northern Bear, the north of England construction player formed only recently as a result of an amalgamation of a large number of relatively small players in the region, has snapped up another company – it has paid £5m for Jennings Roofing which is based in Leeds.

Jennings is a roofing contractor working in both the commercial and residential sectors.

Its latest annual figures (12 months to 30 April 2007) show a pre-tax profit of £680,000 on turnover of £7m. On top of this, there was a £700,000 payment to the Jennings directors.

At the financial year-end, the group’s net assets stood at £1.4m.

The deal involves Northern Bear paying £3.2m in cash sourced from its “existing resources”. There will be the need for a further £900,000 of cash if Jennings’ performance exceeds determined benchmarks in the future.

The balance of the £5m will be paid for by the issue of 1m new Northern Bear shares. It will take the total number of Northern Bear shares to 17m.

John Pither, chairman of Northern Bear, said: “We are delighted. Jennings brings a high calibre management team and strengthens our spread of North East-based businesses.”