Scott Group has acquired HLC (Wood Products) Ltd in a multi -million pound deal bringing together the UK’s pallet market leaders. It is expected that the deal will deliver real customer benefits particularly in relation to customer service and security of supply through their impressive combined, diverse raw material supply chains which are unparalleled in the industry.
Alan Gibson, Managing Director of Scott Pallets, said: “Scott Pallets and HLC will trade side by side as part of Scott Group and together offer an unrivalled national network of multi-faceted manufacturing sites, operating to the highest manufacturing standards with particular focus on quality, health and safety, customer service and account management. Together, we are ideally positioned to support customers in a diverse range of industry sectors nationwide. The deal improves our geographical penetration of the large South East market and increases our potential access to European supply.”
HLC is expected to provide additional strategic and operational capacity together with complementary industry leading business processes and systems in readiness to respond to customers’ increasing demand. HLC’s joint Managing Directors, brothers Ryan and Paul Lewis, will remain with the business together with their senior management team. Several directors of Scott Group (Norman Scott, Alan Gibson, Tracy Trotter and Robert Maclean) will also join the board of HLC.
Gibson continued: “Our customers will also benefit from exceptional, combined, in-house depth of industry knowledge and technical competence. Together we will focus on identifying and integrating best practices to deliver innovative, industry leading service developments. Where there are logistical and operational benefits that could be leveraged to benefit customers, we will look to integrate these, particularly in relation to sustainability and environmental objectives such as improving pallet recovery and reuse volumes.”
Brothers Ryan and Paul Lewis expressed their delight in joining the Scott Group and reaffirmed the commitment to delivering sustained value to customers through the combined strength delivered as a result of the deal. Paul commented: “For 35 years at HLC we have been committed to our customers and that commitment has resulted in strong growth and market leading products and service. We are delighted to be joining forces with Scott Pallets to further improve our commitment to customers, and Ryan and I look forward to working side by side in the coming years.”
HLC operates from three, well-invested, automated facilities in the Midlands and South East (Burton-on-Trent, Needham and Peterborough), including biomass and kilning facilities which add additional service capacity and capabilities to that of Scott Pallets.
The deal was supported by HSBC with BTO acting as legal advisors to Scott Pallets, and True Capital and Jones Day advising HLC.
Source: HLC
