Brulines aims to grow acquisition sevenfold

Oct 28 2008 By Iain Laing, The Journal

BEER monitoring company Brulines wants to grow its newest acquisition more than sevenfold in the next couple of years.

The Stockton company yesterday completed the purchase of Sunderland-based petrol monitoring business Edensure for 220,000.

And chief executive James Dickson said that he expects to “dramatically” expand the business in the next two years. Edensure collects data on the amount of fuel sold at petrol stations and analyses it, partly through an exclusive deal with US firm Warren Rogers, so it can be used to assess details of sales and leakage for the retailers.

The firm has so far taken around 2% of a splintered market by dealing with 130 of the UK’s 9,300 petrol stations. But Mr Dickson says that with £17m turnover Brulines’ expertise and financial security behind it the company should be working with up to 1,000 stations within two years.

“Edensure has the best inventory business in the UK and we believe that with the weight and engineering expertise of Brulines behind it that it can be expanded dramatically,” he said.

“It already has commitments from 240 stations and we believe that we can take 10% of the UK market in a couple of years and then move into the European market after that. There is potential with around 90,000 stations on mainlaind Europe.”

Mr Dickson said that Edensure, which had a turnover of £127,000 in the year to the end of June could be grown to bring in revenues of £900,000 by 2009.

There was likely to be an increase to the Wearside firm’s 11-strong workforce as it grew.

He said the acquisition was expected to be earnings neutral by 2010. The rest of Brulines is also performing strongly and Mr Dickson said it is likely to hit a record turnover of £20m and profits of £5.2m this year.

It saw profits soar 76% to £4.17m in the year to the end of March on revenues of £17m and expects to see its beer monitoring products sell Stateside after tests for the American market are completed in January in Denver.

The company also expects its purchase of its smaller North Yorkshire competitor Nucleus Data last January will boost profits this year.

Last year the company also secured a majority shareholding in Milton Keynes-based Coin Metrics, which uses a similar technology to Brulines in the amusement and gaming industries.