Fuel group bought in €10m deal

Privately held fuel importer and distributor, Stafford Holdings, has bought the Clarke Group oil and home heating business in a deal valued at €10 million by market sources.

Stafford announced yesterday that it had bought the family-owned Clarke Group. It purchased the company through Campus Oil, the subsidiary for which Stafford paid €27 million last year.

Neither side revealed the purchase price. However, on the basis of Clarke's near €40 million turnover, its strong cash flow, real estate portfolio, and the potential for Stafford to boost margins, market sources estimated that it was worth in the region of €10 million.

Wicklow-based Clarke Group is focused on oil and solid fuel distribution in counties Dublin, Wexford and Wicklow. Its sales volumes top 60 million litres a year. The late Mr Pat Clarke founded the company. Since his death, his wife, Mrs Helen Clarke, and family have been running the business.

The company had a turnover last year of close to €37.2 million and made an operating profit of €478,622. Shareholders' funds at the end of the year stood at €3.9 million.

The acquisition will boost Stafford Holdings' turnover to €230 million and bring employment at the enlarged group to over 300. Stafford imports and distributes oil and solid fuel, and also has a retail presence. The Clarke purchase will make it the number two player in the Republic's solid fuel market behind State-owned Bórd na Móna.

The company has a stated objective of getting to the number one position in the sale and distribution of oil products to the country's domestic, commercial and agricultural sectors.

While Clarke's turnover is below the €40 million threshold required to trigger an automatic Competition Authority review of the deal, Stafford Holdings chief executive, Mr Mark Stafford, told The Irish Times last night that the companies had told the monopolies watchdog once both sides had reached agreement.

"We informed them as soon as we had a heads of agreement signed," he said. Mr Stafford added that the authority had not found any obstacle to the deal going ahead.

He also suggested that there would be little likelihood of Stafford's competitors objecting.

"In any case, there are plenty of multinationals in this business who are likely to be prepared to go toe-to-toe with us," he said.

Stafford Holdings is the holding company for a group of businesses managed from its Co Wexford base.

The Stafford family largely control the group, but its board of directors includes chairman of DIY and builders' merchant, Heiton Holdings, Mr Richard Keatinge.