Mayflower buys Motor Panels
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• Truck cab maker Motor Panels has been rescued from receivership with a £14.75m cash bid by a company a quarter of its size. The Surrey-based Mayflower Corporation takes over the Coventry firm next month subject to a shareholders' vote. Receiver Price Waterhouse has managed Motor Panels since the collapse of its parent company, CH Industrial, in March (CM 7-13 March).
Motor Panels has continued to trade successfully, boosted by demand for bodies for the fastselling Land Rover Discovery four-wheel drive vehicle. It makes cabs for many makes of truck including Leyland Daf, Seddon Atkinson and Iveco Ford in the UK, and Mack and Western Star in the US. Last year it made Um profit.
The company employs 650 staff in Coventry, 150 in Wigan and 200 in North America.
Phillip Baldwin of Price Waterhouse has acted as chairman since March. "The Mayflower takeover is a success story for everyone concerned," he says, "including the receiver, Motor Panels, the workforce and the customers."
Baldwin says the takeover will generate new orders. "Some customers have held back because of the company's uncertain future," he says.
The acquisition will be financed by Mayflower shareholders' money, which avoids the burden of paying back expensive loans.
Mayflower Corporation is the holding company of a specialist manufacturing group, which includes Ribbons, a UK-based maker of seatbelt webbing. It sees the acquisition of Motor Panels as a move to develop a group of automotive and engineering firms.
On 1 March Motor Panels announced a UK turnover of £38.4m. Its US operation, with plants in Ohio and North Carolina, contributed £24.7m ($33.2m).