During April the business completed an acquisition in Grangemouth Scotland aligned to progress our UK business strategy. The acquisition of DB Group [UK] Limited provides a local presence into a UK Petro-Chemical region identified for growth by BIS OHARE. The purchase also further increases our professional engineering capacity to support customer manufacturing needs and investment plans across the UK.

DB Group provides Professional Engineering, Design and Project Management services to Process Industry customers in Scotland. As a result of this acquisition we will extend our current professional engineering capability in Grangemouth, increasing capacity in the region to 65 engineers experienced in supporting manufacturing customers to improve and expand their production assets.

As a result of this acquisition the business now has professional engineering service centres based in Runcorn, Huddersfield, Humberside and Scotland which currently employs 169 engineers and potential capacity of approximately 200. All the technical disciplines necessary to support process industry customers are available within the business, with flexibility to utilise capability across the operating regions to match supply with customer project requirements. Increasingly customers in the UK are seeking flexible solutions to their refurbishment and investment programmes. This acquisition increases our competitive advantage in the provision of Engineering, Project Management or Design & Build solutions to customers in the Chemical and Refining markets. No other supplier with a focus on dedicated supply to Process Manufacturing customers can boast this scale, breadth of professional expertise and geographic reach.