OIL and gas engineering services group Plexus Holdings has invested £735,000 in cash to buy a 49 per cent interest in Kincardine Manufacturing Services, a precision engineering company based in Stonehaven.
Aberdeen-based Plexus, which is quoted on the Alternative Investment Market, is taking the stake by subscribing for new shares in KMS, and the cash will be used by the Stonehaven business to expand existing capacity and fund other growth initiatives.
KMS supplies blue-chip international clients including Schlumberger, Halliburton, GE Oil & Gas, NOV and Weatherford, Plexus noted.
The Aberdeen company, which owns the patent-protected “POS-GRIP” friction-grip method of wellhead engineering, said an additional cash amount of up to £150,000 may be payable by Plexus to the current owners of KMS, subject to the performance of the Stonehaven business in the year ending this month.
Plexus said the transaction was in line with its management’s strategy of positioning the group as an intellectual property-led company based around its POS-GRIP method of engineering, “with a design, development and now a machining capability”.
Ben van Bilderbeek, chief executive of Plexus, said yesterday: “As a highly experienced engineering company based in Aberdeenshire with a blue-chip customer base, KMS shares many similarities with Plexus.
“We already have first rate IP (intellectual property) in the form of our POS-GRIP technology, and now, thanks to today’s transaction, we are further able to support our programme to expand the application of our proprietary technology throughout the oil and gas supply chain and beyond into areas such as geothermal and decommissioning.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here