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Pete Osborne swells Stiller Group's wave
Page 5
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• by Dominic Perry High-profile South Yorkshire operator Pete Osborne Logistics has been snapped up by one of the rising stars of the transport industry, Stockton-on-Teesbased Stiller Group.
The acquisition of Osborne is the third purchase in as many years for Stiller—the others being South Wales-based Carline and Midlands operator Starr Roadways—which has seen its value grow from £15m to £50m in four years.
Boss Paul Stiller was reluctant to discuss the details of the takeover, except to confirm that the deal had taken place.
Although he refused to discuss how much Stiller Group had paid for the Barnsley-based warehousing and transport firm, it is assumed that it was a large figure given Osborne's profitability—in fact, one analyst speculates that the figure could be high as £6m: "This was no distress sale," the analyst adds. "They [Stiller] must have made it attractive to sell."
Last year Pete Osborne Logistics, which only became a limited company in 1996, made a gross profit of £1.7m, up 9% on the previous year, with a turnover around the £6m mark.
Stiller also refused to speculate as to the reason for the purchase, but analyst David Pattison from Plimsoll Publishing suggests that Stiller Group is on the acquisitions trail.
"I think that Stiller has a pretty obvious strategy of market dominance and It's on a bit of a charge at the moment," he says.
"One of the ways that I have seen companies like Stiller operate is to build their business on the back of acquisitions. They go very 'gong-ho' and the sole objective is to get stock market quotation. That's not necessarily where Stiller is going but I have seen this style before."
It is not yet clear whether Osborne will retain its ciis
tinctive red, white and green livery and high-spec trucks.
However, Pete Osborne has been replaced as director of the firm by Paul Stiller, Ken Watson and Ian Marshall—Stiller Group's managing director, financial director and operations director respectively, • dominic.perry(krbico.uk