Nicholl, which has turnover of around £60m, was previously owned by management and a number of investors including barclays ventures but will now be part of bawtry, a business looking to grow its industrial investment portfolio. Nicholl and its subsidiaries will continue to operate as a separate division of bawtry under their existing management teams and will maintain the group&rsquos longterm growth strategy of developing food packaging solutions.
Bawtry investments already has interests in the metals sector through its subsidiary bawtry carbon, a manufacturer of highly specialist carbon products that are a key component in the process for the production by smelting of primary aluminium metal from its ore. The deal comes two and a half years after barclays ventures became a key shareholder in the business as part of a financial restructure in late 2009. Since then the group has announced a huge reduction in its bank debt, revealing in february last year that it had been cut from around £20m to £1.2m. &lsquoexcellent outcome&rsquo nicholl group chief executive john griffiths said the deal was &ldquoan excellent outcome&rdquo that would allos nicholl to &ldquomaximise its potential&rdquo.
He said &ldquoover the past two years we have completed a major financial restructuring and embarked on a comprehensive and proactive new product development programme. &ldquowith the support of a focused new owner, who shares our vision for the further development of the group, we now have the longterm stability in place to enable us to achieve all our goals, while maintaining our reputation for firstclass customer service.&rdquo richard barrick, director of bawtry investments, said &ldquowe are delighted to welcome the nicholl group and its employees to bawtry investments. &ldquothis acquisition is a key part of our own growth strategy and a further demonstration of our commitment to sustainable manufacturing.
We are confident that nicholl will make an immediate and significant contribution to our continued success and development.&rdquo nicholl food packaging was founded in 1989 and is one of the largest producers of aluminium foil containers in europe it owns ecopla, which operates in france and benelux, and bachmann in germany.
