Powerscreen International, which is expected to release its delayed financial results within the next 10 days, has sold Geith International to its management for £8.4 million (£7.15 million sterling).
The Doggett family sold Geith to Powerscreen for £6.2 million sterling last year and it has now been sold to the management team headed by managing director Mr Bart Cunningham, with ICC Venture Capital holding a "substantial minority stake" for the £4.2 million sterling it has provided for the management buyout.
Geith manufactures a range of attachments and fittings for the agricultural and building materials handling industries. Geith currently has sales of £8.4 million sterling with pre-tax profits of £787,000 sterling. It is understood about 60 per cent of sales come from the United States and that future growth will come predominantly from the US and Europe.
The sale of Geith is part of the new Powerscreen management's strategy of concentrating on its screening and crushing divisions, following the discovery earlier this year of massive financial irregularities at Matbro, one of the companies within Powerscreen's materials handling division.
Most of the other companies in the materials handling division will be sold as part the new strategy, including CPV in Monaghan which manufactures stainless steel for the chemical and liquid food transport industries. Powerscreen bought CPV for £5.3 million sterling in 1992.
Although it comes within the materials handling division, Powerscreen is not selling Moffett Engineering, the Monaghan-based manufacturer of truck-mounted forklifts. Powerscreen paid £23 million in cash for Moffett in September last year, just three months before the financial scandal first became public.
In total, Powerscreen aims to realise £50 million sterling from the sales, with the proceeds being used to pay down the estimated £65 million sterling debt.
