Buyouts buck corporate trend

The process industries have become accustomed to the waves of mergers and acquisitions that have swept over them in recent years, which makes a couple of corporate developments this month catch the eye.

Following a management buyout, the Coventry-based process engineering contractor CEL International is now an independent company. Formerly Courtaulds Engineering, CEL had been a business unit of the Acordis Group, the man-made fibres and speciality materials company. With financial backing from a specialist venture capitalist, CEL will now be owned and led by its chief executive, Rodney Haynes, and deputy chief executive Ed Wilson.

Included in the buyout is Cortex, CEL's environmental and process consultancy. Commented Rodney Haynes: 'This is an excellent opportunity for us to build on the success that has already been achieved. With the support of our customers and our highly experienced staff we are moving forward with a substantial workload, a good track record and a competitive basis for winning further work. The company will have the same management team and operationally we shall be identical to the previous organisation. No changes are envisaged.'

In 1988 CEL turned over £8million, with before tax profits of £469 000, from its existing markets including pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals, food and consumer goods.CEL's current order book includes projects for Glaxo Wellcome, Elementis Chromium, Borden Chemical, Akzo Nobel, Dunlop Slazenger, 3M and Coventry & Solihull Waste.

* Also backed by venture capital funding, in this case from 3i, is the £84million institutional buyout of Motherwell Information Systems from its parent Motherwell Bridge Holdings. With a turnover of around £44million, MIS is a rapidly growing international provider of IT and services to the manufacturing industries and utilities. 3i is investing £43.5million for a majority stake with the balance taken by the worldwide management team led by chief executive Kerry Brown.