The £138m cash sale of one of Northern Ireland’s biggest logistics firms was prompted by the retirement of its owner whose daughter now becomes managing director.
The NI company moves chilled and dry goods by road and ferry between the island of Ireland and the UK, moving over 100,000 trailers back and forward every year. It has over 800 staff.
Founder Norman McBurney, who will be 80 in July, gave his reasons for the sale in a memo to staff members seen by the Belfast Telegraph.
His wife Lynn and son Philip are also among the group’s directors, along with daughter Carolyn, who succeeds him as managing director.
He said: “Due to my retirement, I am pleased to announce we have agreed to sell the entire share capital of our companies to DFDS.
“I am delighted that the businesses will continue as they currently are, within the DFDS Group.
“The family and senior management team will continue to run the businesses with my daughter Carolyn Carmichael appointed as my replacement as managing director.
“We wish to assure you that it will be very much business as usual going forward and we have no doubt that the business will continue to grow from strength to strength.”
He thanked staff for their loyal service and commitment.
The deal could take up until April to complete as it has to be approved by competition authorities in the UK and Republic.
McBurney was founded in 1965 by Mr McBurney with a single lorry. It now has 400 trucks and 1,360 trailers, including 955 refrigerated trailers, and owns most of its equipment.
Its focus on the Irish Sea left it feeling the effects of the NI Protocol, with the group’s Paul Jackson last year claiming that the deal had dragged haulage back to the “Dark Ages”.
However, in accounts for 2021, the group reported pre-tax profits of £9.2m, up from £7.7m the year before.
DFDS said it had agreed to buy the company for 1.2bn Danish krone – around £138m.
The business said the deal enabled it to expand in the UK and Ireland and connect services to Europe and Turkey.
DFDS chief executive Torben Carlsen said: “DFDS is dedicated to serving the UK and Irish markets with reliable and efficient transport and logistics services. With increasing importance, we connect our UK and Irish services with the rest of Europe through our extensive network.
“With the acquisition of the McBurney Transport Group, we enhance the scope of our customer offerings, particularly towards the resilient food sector.”
Mr McBurney said: “I am confident that our many loyal and dedicated employees will be comfortable and happy after this transaction.”
The group is based in Ballymena and has a total of three locations in NI, three in England and one in Scotland.
It has a 25,000-pallet cold store in Liverpool, enabling the transport of cold chain goods throughout the UK.
And under the name of Bondelivery, it owns a room-temperature warehouse which delivers to shops and carries out ‘last mile delivery’ all over the island of Ireland.
