Engineer acquires specialist in United States
Keller Group has acquired US specialist piling contractor HJ Foundation.
Keller is paying an initial sum of about $49m (£24.5m), payable in cash from its existing resources.
HJ reported operating profit of about $25m (£12.5m) on sales of about $92m (£46m) in the year to 31 December 2006.
HJ specialises in continuous flight auger (CFA) piles, a growing product line that is new to Keller in the US.
Commenting on the acquisition, Justin Atkinson, chief executive of Keller, said: ""We are pleased to have completed this purchase of HJ which, by adding a complementary product line, represents an excellent strategic fit with our existing US foundation businesses. We see significant scope for HJ to support Keller's established US businesses to develop CFA piling elsewhere in the US.”
