Acquisition

RNS Number : 5113I

Xeros Technology Group plc

22 March 2018

 

22 March 2018

Xeros Technology Group plc

Xeros expands US coverage with acquisition of another personal protection equipment cleaning business

Xeros Technology Group plc (AIM: XSG, 'Xeros', 'the Group'), the developer and provider of polymer based technologies with multiple commercial applications, has today acquired Gloves Inc. ('Gloves'), which provides, cleaning, inspection, and repair services for firefighter personal protection equipment ('PPE'), from facilities in Atlanta and Miami.

Gloves was acquired for an initial cash consideration of US$800,000 with a further contingent cash consideration of up to US$300,000, subject to certain growth targets. The initial consideration was funded from the Group's existing cash resources.  For the year ended 31 December 2017, Gloves generated revenues of US$0.99m and EBITDA of US$0.36m on gross assets of US$0.15m.

Xeros' strategy is to achieve national coverage by operating specialist cleaning facilities serving the major US metropolitan areas. The acquisition of Gloves, together with the acquisition of MarKen PPE in July 2017, represent key milestones towards achieving the goal of having four sites by the end of 2018, with national US coverage expected to be achieved in 2019.

With 1.1m firefighters in the US, the annual value of the firefighter PPE cleaning market is estimated to be US$330m.

The Xeros cleaning solution, which will be deployed at Gloves' facilities, is highly effective at removing harmful contaminants whilst also extending the life of expensive PPE garments.  The Gloves business will be integrated into Xeros' High Performance Workwear Division and will immediately trade under the MarKen brand name.

An increasingly stringent US regulatory environment is leading to a significant rise in the outsourcing of the cleaning and inspection of PPE to specialist independent providers such as Gloves and MarKen. This is driven by increased understanding of the health risks associated with soiled and contaminated PPE and in turn, increasing awareness of the liability exposure associated with poor compliance. Xeros' cleaning solution, is uniquely positioned to meet this demand, which extends beyond firefighting into the petrochemicals, mining and construction industries.

Mark Nichols, Chief Executive of Xeros, said:

"Our acquisition of Gloves is the next step in bringing the transformational benefits of our technology to the entire US firefighter PPE market. The learning and competence which we are now acquiring will be the platform from which we can make our technology available on a global basis for a number of high performance workwear markets."

Enquiries:

Xeros Technology Group plc Mark Nichols, Chief Executive Officer Paul Denney, Chief Financial Officer	Tel: [phone]
Jefferies International Limited (Nominated Adviser and Joint Broker) Simon Hardy / Will Soutar	Tel: [phone]
Berenberg (Joint Broker) Chris Bowman / Ben Wright / Amritha Murali	Tel: [phone]
Instinctif Partners (Financial PR) Adrian Duffield / Helen Tarbet / James Gray	Tel: [phone]

Notes to Editors

The US firefighter PPE market is a specialist market for the cleaning, inspection and repair of uniforms and is valued at approximately $330m p.a. With 1.1m firefighters in the US, there are 350,000 professional firefighters based in approximately 8,000 fire crews. Nearly 40% of these professional firefighters are based within 100 miles of one of the top 10 major US metropolitan areas. Each professional firefighter has, on average, 2 sets of bespoke turnout gear.

Xeros Technology Group plc (LN: XSG) is a platform technology company that is reinventing water intensive industrial and commercial processes by reducing water and chemistry usage with its polymer technologies.  Its patented technologies have the capacity to provide material economic, operational and sustainability improvements that are unattainable with traditional processes.  The Group is currently exploiting its intellectual property in three areas: Cleaning Technologies, Tanning Technologies and Textile Technologies. Xeros has a number of agreements in place with such international organisations as BASF, Hilton and Wollsdorf Leder.

For more information, please visit - http://www.xerostech.com/

 

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