Victoria plc acquires Abingdon, UK’s largest manufacturer of quality carpets

The privately owned business, having its manufacturing facility at Newbridge in Caerphilly and also has facilities in Kidderminster and Bradford. Last year it sold carpets through its retailers to more than 500,000 end consumers.

Abingdon, which employs more than 500 people across its three sites, manufactures and distributes mid-range carpets, carpet tiles and hard flooring and produces more than nine million square metres of carpet each year has been bought by international carpet and flooring manufacturer Victoria plc.

Victoria produces carpets, carpet tiles and other floor coverings in Australia and Ireland as well as the UK. In the year to the end of March it saw turnover of £75.1m, ebit of £2.5m and profit before tax of £2.2m.

Geoff Wilding, executive chairman of Victoria, said that the acquisition of Abingdon Flooring represents the second significant step forward for Victoria, following the acquisition of Westex in December last year. By integrating Abingdon into the Group, they anticipate accelerating Victoria’s growth by enhancing its combined offering and reach across the UK.

The two acquisitions have together substantially increased the scale, breadth and reach of Victoria’s offering and are expected to be immediately earnings enhancing. Their focus is on integrating the business and delivering the synergies and growth.

The deal, which is funded in part by a loan facility from the Business Growth Fund (BGF), is for an initial cash consideration of £7.65 with a deferred cash consideration of up £4.5m payable if annual performance targets for increased ebit are reached over three years.

According to Victoria, all of Abingdon’s key senior managers will stay in the business and it will continue to operate independently. There would be no redundancies as part of the acquisition process.

The acquisition is in line with Victoria’s strategy of growing its business with earnings enhancing acquisitions.

The acquisition will be funded using facilities provided by the Victoria’s long-standing bankers, Barclays Bank, and from its newly-signed £10m unsecured loan note facility provided by the BGF.

BGF’s regional director for the Midlands Gavin Petken will join the Victoria board. According to Mr Petken, Victoria has built a fantastic reputation in the UK and overseas for supplying a wide range of quality flooring materials.

The annual turnover of the enlarged group will be more than £160m and it will operate from six manufacturing sites in the UK and two in Australia.