Pan-Humber heavy industry specialist On Line Group has bought out a complementary business in the South East as it accelerates its growth and expansion plans.
The Immingham-headquartered engineering giant, an employer of 600 nationwide, has swooped for Hampshire-based BPE.
A 45-strong team is split between there and a northern office in Cheshire, and specialises in technology-focused chemical and process engineering consultancy. It is described as bringing enhanced capability in feasibility studies, concept and front-end designs to On Line Group.
The undisclosed deal is seen as allowing both BPE and On Line Group to 鈥済row and expand their combined offering across a wider variety of key market sectors and achieve a greater geographical coverage across the 海角视频 from the two organisations operating centres鈥.
Steve Laird, group finance director for the 拢41 million turnover acquirer, said: 鈥淥n Line Group has been looking for opportunities to diversify into new sectors and increase our geographical spread across the 海角视频.聽 BPE and On Line Group are a good match, sharing the same core values and providing excellent growth opportunities for both businesses.鈥
Services offered are similar, but are described as complementing, rather than competing. There is no crossover with clients or prospective companies.
BPE, which turned over 拢4 million in the last financial year, provides a full range of process engineering services, including process systems design 鈥 in which it is described as a 海角视频 leader in chemical and biochemical engineering 鈥 as well as optimisation and modelling, scale up and process development together with safety and compliance support.
Noel Quigley, managing director at BPE, based on the outskirts of Winchester, said: 鈥淪ince our founder and major shareholder, Mike Brown, retired, the board has been looking for a new parent company to support the business with its growth strategy. It was important that any new arrangement would retain BPE鈥檚 well-known, trusted brand that has been developed over many years. It was also important to grow the business, creating new opportunities 鈥 and the parentage of On Line Group provides the perfect solution. We are excited about the future and we are looking forward to working with all our new colleagues within the On Line Group of companies.鈥
As reported, On Line is in the process of developing a 拢5 million statement headquarters in Immingham, just a few miles from where it started off, in a shed on the former Killingholme airfield.
