Northern Bear plans to climb to top of tree

Nov 14 2007 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal

BUILDING services and supplies company Northern Bear has announced plans to double its annual sales in a year after making its latest multi-million pound acquisition.

The County Durham group made its first foray outside the North-East yesterday by snapping up Leeds-based Jennings Roofings for around £5m.

And the rapidly-growing firm expects to acquire two North-East construction businesses in the next three months as it aims to double annual revenue to £80m by November 2008.

Last week the AIM-listed business, which has already spent around £6.8m this year on takeovers, revealed it had raised £11m for acquisitions through an arrangement with Yorkshire Bank.

Following the Jennings acquisition the firm has around half of this takeover kitty left and expects to use the remaining amount to land two North-East building services firms either side of Christmas.

Northern’s development director Nick Gold was unable to name the North-East businesses in question but said they both employ around 60 people and provide services to local authorities and big developers such as Bellway and Persimmon.

He also said the company remained committed to the region and had no immediate plans to branch out to other parts of the country. He said: “We still have a big chunk of the £11m in the bank for acquisitions and we will be making another one before Christmas and another early next year before our financial results in March. We’ve bought six companies so far this year and we aim to buy around six or seven next year.”

Northern’s executive chairman Jon Pither said: “Having raised a significant new acquisition fund, it is very pleasing to be able to make use of it so quickly.

“Expanding into a new area is a very exciting milestone for Northern Bear and one that indicates our future ambitions.

“We are hopeful that further acquisitions in both the North-East and Yorkshire will be finalised before the end of the financial year.”

Northern Bear, which currently owns nine building services companies in the North-East, was launched on the stock market in December 2006.

The group’s share price climbed steadily in its first six months as a public company, jumping from 89p a share in December 2006 to 176p by late July.

Since then the shares have declined and yesterday were trading at 123.50p a share.

See page two to read more on Northern Bear.