The Glazerite UK Group has purchased the entire share capital of Trade Frame Holdings Limited, the owner of City Beads Ltd of Peterborough.
The company will operate as Glazerite (East) Ltd under a new holding company called The Glazerite UK Group Ltd, with John Hewitt as chairman, Jason Thompson as managing director, Mike Johnson as finance director and Ian Lloyd as operations director. Also included within the new structure will be Glazerite Windows Ltd; Glazerite (Northwest) Ltd; and Glazerite (Southwest) Ltd. Each company will be headed by its own board of directors formed through selective promotions from within each division and complimented by external appointments.
City Beads manufactures products using Halo Rustique and System 10, both Veka UK Group products and key factors in the decision to purchase the company. These will be complemented by additional products already offered by Glazerite, including vertical sliding and fully reversible windows, bi-folding doors, Residence 9 flush sash windows and composite residential doors by Solidor and Doorco.
Other significant factors that influenced the acquisition include the company’s Peterborough location, its longevity – City Beads was formed in 1982 – and a longstanding team and established customer base. Current sales are circa £4 million with an output of 450 frames per week.
An investment programme already agreed will take place over 12 – 18 months with an expected growth to £6m, an increase of 50%, within that period.
Combined output of The Glazerite UK Group is now in excess of 3500 frames per week, this will increase to more than 3800 frames following completion of the investment in systems and machinery. The group forecast sales in excess of £28 million for 2016 making them one of the largest independently owned companies in the industry.
Group chairman, John Hewitt, said of the acquisition: “The purchase of Trade Frame Holdings Ltd and City Beads Ltd became a natural and obvious move and I would like to thank Will Nicoll, former owner of the company, for his cooperation and support throughout the negotiations.Will intends to continue to run his Tradeframe.com operation in Peterborough, Cheltenham, Hertfordshire & Swindon and will become a customer of Glazerite (East) Ltd. The focus of all operations will be significantly improved as a result.
“Additionally Glazerite customers will now enjoy the choice of a huge range of products, with The Glazerite UK Group, the largest supplier of VEKA Group products by a significant margin.This brings benefits of efficiency, expertise and scale. The relationships with VEKA and our other market leading suppliers has been a corner stone of our success over more than 16 years and this will continue.
“This is the most exciting and positive time for everyone involved with and in The Glazerite UK Group and we welcome our new colleagues and customers to the Glazerite family”
Will Nicoll was quick to praise Glazerite: “We had interest from a number of potential purchasers but I saw Glazerite as the perfect choice to take the company forward. My skills and passion are in retail and I can now concentrate on developing Tradeframe.com knowing that I have an excellent supplier and that the City Beads team – to whom I remain incredibly grateful and loyal – will prosper through Glazerite’s enormous strengths in manufacturing. It’s an excellent outcome.”
