Oct 26 2010
Vickers Laboratories Ltd, one of the country’s most respected and successful speciality chemicals manufacturers, has been acquired in a management buy-out.
Three long-standing members of the company’s current management team – Steve Foster, Operations Director; Phil Constantine, Operations Manager; and Paul Bottomley, Quality and Supply Chain Manager – have acquired the business from the current majority shareholder, Julian Driver.
Vickers Laboratories was founded in 1974 and Julian Driver joined the company in 1976 as a Chemist. He became Chief Executive in 1998 and took ownership in 2003, realising that Vickers had the opportunity to develop as a chemical services business, since when profit levels have increased by more than 20 per cent.
The new management team emphasise that it’s ‘business as usual but with some changes’. All three participants in the MBO have been with the company for more than 20 years and have been a major part in a success story that has seen the winning of major industry awards and some high-profile projects, including creating the ‘chocolate’ for the film Charlie & the Chocolate Factory.
Steve Foster, the new Managing Director, joined Vickers in 1987 as a Laboratory Chemist. He moved into Products and Services with the company and launched the Customer Service Team, before taking over Operations in 2002.
Paul Bottomley, Sales Director in the new team, joined Vickers direct from school in 1983 and progressed through Operations and Administration before becoming the company’s Buyer and then Quality and Supply Chain Manager.
Phil Constantine, the new Operations Director, also joined the company from school, in 1981. Starting as a Process Operator, he developed his management role and became Operations Manager in 2007.
The vendor Julian Driver says: “It is very exciting and fulfilling on a personal level to see the team I have worked with and mentored over many years become the new owners of the business”.
“It is a team of people with a tremendous track record, and the ability and skills to take the company forward to the next level.”
The advisors on the acquisition were: Accountants Sagars LLP, Yorkshire law firms Gordons and Milners Solicitors, and Richard Feltham of Garbutt & Elliott who acted as corporate finance advisor to the vendor.