Bunzl Group to sell off York
Page 20
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• York Trailer is being bought out of the Bunzl Group by its senior management in a deal believed to be worth over £25 million. At the same time, York is continuing its policy of acquisition (it has bought Neville Charrold and Glover Webb in the past two years) by buying the Italian trailer manufacturer Piacenza Rimorchi.
York has had a chequered history since it became British, .rather than Canadian, owned. In the early 1980s it entered a steep decline which almost finished it off, and in 1985 it was bought by United Parcels, which itself was taken over by Bunzl just four months later.
Now Bunzl is believed to be concentrating more on its core business of transport operation, and York is not seen as a natural partner to what is essentially a service company.
York has grown into quite a large manufacturing organistion in the past few years, with six main plants in the UK, one in Holland and one in Australia (where it bought the Macteco axles and suspensions group in 1985, renaming it York Transport Equipment).
That, with the acquisitions of Neville Charrold and Glover Webb, has helped York Group turnover to climb above £70 million and, more importantly, helped it to make small but growing profits. York claims to be the British market leader in trailers with 28% of the total sales by volume. Its monthly production rates of around 150 box vans, 140 curtainsiders, 60 reefers and 90 flats, tippers and drawbars would give it a total of around 5,300 trailers and some 1,200 rigid bodies in a full year. Crane Fruehauf — the other major UK trailer maker and, like York, a recent buyout — built some 4,200 trailers last year, when York's reefer production was about 45 a month.
A buyout at York has been under discussion for some months and has been arranged through lead bankers Mercury Asset Management, a part of the S B Warburg group. Some 26 senior managers, led by managing director Jim Davies, are taking part in the buyout which, if similar buyouts are any guide, will give them some 10-15% of the equity in the independent company.
Simultaneously with the buyout, York is acquiring Umberto Piacenza Rimorchi for £6 million, giving York a foothold in the strongly nationalistic Italian home market and another base on the European mainland. Its other main Continental plant at Dordecht, Holland, concentrates on TIR canopy trailers. York is also on the point of starting up in Denmark, and is believed to be on the bunt for a French trailer manufacturer as well.
The Italian plant should also give York's TEC subsidiary the opportunity for developing its sales of suspensions and axles in Continental Europe.
The buyout comes at a time when York has ambitious plans for growth from within as well. The main York company intends to enter the tanker market in the second half of the year, filling probably the biggest gap in its product line-up, and Thermostar, the Group's reefer specialist, is about to attack the light refrigerated vehicles market Its Watford branch is to start building refrigerated versions of panel vans like the Ford Transit and Freight Rover Sherpa, again in the second half of this year.
Within the next year Glover Webb intends to launch an amphibious vehicle and a 4x4. Also, the Australian and Indonesian York operations are to be consolidated into York Transport Equipment PTY of Australia.
by Allan Winn