Century Homes bids €120m for Brooks Group

The timber frame company Century Homes has joined the race to buy building providers Brooks Group with a bid worth approximately €120 million.

The bid has been submitted to UK investment bank Morgan Stanley which is handling the sale of Brooks on behalf of its owner, Finnish group UPM-Kymmene, The Irish Times understands.

With 16 locations in the Republic and annual turnover of €150 million, Brooks is the third largest builders' merchant business in the Irish market. It also has 12 outlets in the UK.

The Grafton Group and Heitons are also believed to have submitted bids in recent weeks. Another timber company, the McMahon group of Co Limerick, may also have an interest.

In addition to Irish interest, two major British companies, Travis Perkins, a timber and builders' merchant firm and Wolseley, the world's largest distributer of heating and plumbing products, may also submit bids.

The race to buy Brooks is expected to take some months to complete.

Century is a rapidly growing company and if the bid was successful it would represent a major acquisition which would transform the firm and involve a major diversification from its existing business.

Century now employs almost 350 people and is aiming to increase this to 600 over the next five years. It will post annual turnover for 2004 of between €70 and €75 million and is believed to have pre-tax profits of around €8 million.

The McCaughey family of Co Monaghan are the major shareholders in the company, along with Mr James McBride of Ballymacforan, Co Monaghan.

Last year the company announced plans to create 150 jobs in a €5 million investment in Tullamore, Co Offaly. It also has plants in Monaghan, Longford and Dungarvan and in Cardiff, the Welsh capital. The company, founded more than 40 years ago, has been involved in many different building projects ranging from hospitals to large-scale housing developments, apartments and multistorey hotel projects.

Its bid is believed to be funded by its own finance and loans from three banks. It has stated on several occasions it is aggressively looking for acquisitions.

As a builder of timber homes Century purchases additional building components and has developed a commercial relationship with Brooks Group as a result. It is understood it has told Morgan Stanley this is one of the reasons its bid would be a perfect fit.

UPM-Kymmene has been suffering from falling profits and the management of the company has responded by rationalising its operations.

The company also found itself in the news last month when European Commission investigators visited various UPM premises in connection with a Commission investigation of alleged antitrust activities. After its own investigation UPM decided to approach competition authorities in the EU, the United States and Canada.