McColl's global expansion to take in fresh Australian bid

INDUSTRIAL tycoon Jim McColl has revealed he is back on the acquisition trail, just weeks after buying parts of US conglomerate Textron in a billion dollar deal.

The Clyde Blowers owner yesterday told The Scotsman that he submitted a bid for an unnamed Australian company last Friday and hopes to hear back within the next month.

If successful, McColl said that his targeted Australian company would become part of David Brown Hydraulics, one of the firms he bought from Textron in September for $1 billion.

The tycoon yesterday said that the takeover of the four Textron businesses – which he hailed at the time as the "deal of the decade" – had been "fabulous".

"They're all going extremely well, better than we had modelled when we were assessing the acquisitions," McColl explained.

His comments came as Clyde Process Solutions (CPS), the Aim-listed materials handling specialist of which McColl is the chairman, yesterday announced interim profits rose five-fold to £2 million.

Revenues in the six months to 31 August jumped by 39 per cent to £36.2m, with operating profit rising by 49 per cent to £8.9m.

CPS said the dramatic increase in profits was helped by the strong dollar but was down to the group's global spread of clients in different sectors.

Demand was driven by clients' desires to save money on energy bills and limit environmental impact by installing more efficient systems, the group added.

A maiden interim dividend of 0.75p was declared.

Monaco-based McColl, who was born near East Kilbride, described CPS's order book – which stands at £34.5m, nearing its record level – as "excellent" and he expects the majority of the orders to be fulfilled by the end of the financial year.

CPS recently opened an office in South Africa and expects to launch a joint venture in India before the end of February.

Alex Stewart, CPS's chief executive, said: "We've targeted our customers, moving to where they are. We're China to Chile these days.

"We've moved the operation globally from a sales and operations point of view. We've opened subsidiaries in Asia, Africa and South America.

"We've also launched a subsidiary in South Africa, which will kick in next year, and we will hopefully have a joint venture in India. We're already selling into those territories, because that's where the customers are, but we need to be local as well."

Stewart said: "The announcement in China of $569bn in stimulus to keep the growth going is more important for us."

Commenting on Monday's Pre-Budget Report (PBR), McColl said: "I don't think there's anything in the PBR to help us.

"We didn't expect anything in it. We've very much developed into a global business so anything that happens in the UK has a limited effect on us.

"Obviously, anything that can stimulate lending by the banks and ease the pressure on companies locally that may have debt facility problems is always helpful but I don't think there's really any major impact on our business from the PBR."