Brulines pump up the volume of acquisitions

Jun 10 2010 by John Hill, The Journal

BEER and petrol monitoring firm Brulines has seen profits rise and said it hopes to make further acquisitions in the petrol forecourt market.

The Stockton company said it will pay £1.2m up front for Leicestershire firm Retail and Forecourt Solutions, plus four times the profits on July 31. It will then pay three and a half times the profits on July 2011, minus any money it has already paid.

The company recently set up a forecourt services division to further diversify its work in the petrol supply market as well as building its beer flow monitoring, gaming machine and vending markets.

It picked up fuel monitoring firm Energy Level Systems in April, but pulled out of a deal for Southampton electronic payments firm Universe Group last month.

The announcement came as Brulines announced a 4% rise in turnover from £19.07m to £19.83m, but pre-tax profits fell from £4.62m to £4.04m. It said it was planning further acquisitions in the next financial year.

Chief executive James Dickson said: “The maximum we’re going to be paying for RFS is three and a half times the profits in July 2011.

“We have a strategy in which we would be putting together products and services which would provide a one-stop shop for forecourt operators.

“Universe would have been an accelerator in terms of building for the future, but our strategy was not dependent on it so we were happy to stand back from that and crack on with the acquisitions we’d identified.

“Within three to five years we would hope the forecourt division would be in a position not dissimilar to the leisure division. We’re looking at replicating the success we’ve had with our core beer division and we’re acquiring businesses that are already profitable.”

Acquisitions such as RFS boosted the workforce from 250 to 290 in the last year, and Dickson said that new jobs should become available through future organic growth and acquisitions.

The company’s core business, which involves providing systems that monitor beer flow and temperature, saw turnover rise “modestly” from £16.68m to £16.78m.