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Deal to sell Weir Pumps for £100m Former apprentice buys Weir pumps
(about 13 hours later)
Entrepreneur Jim McColl has agreed to buy Scottish engineering company Weir Pumps in a deal worth £100m. Hundreds of jobs have been saved after one of Scotland's richest men bought the historic engineering business where he started his career.
It should mean more security for several hundred staff in Glasgow who were facing an uncertain future. Jim McColl, 55, who owns Clyde Blowers, bought Glasgow-based Weir Pumps in a £100m funding package.
Those jobs had been under threat after a failed attempt to sell the business to Swiss firm Sulzer for £48m. The deal will see the firm incorporated into a new company, Clyde Pumps Ltd, and a new factory built in Glasgow.
Mr McColl, who already owns the engineering firm Clyde Blowers, said he believed Weir Pumps now had a strong platform to grow. Mr McColl said as a result of a strong order book, the company has a healthy workload for the next two years.
Following the collapse of the Swiss deal, Clyde Blowers said talks had been held over its possible acquisition of Weir Pumps. The businessman was at number 10 in last month's Sunday Times Rich List for Scotland, with a fortune of £435m.
Many of the Weir Pumps staff had been expecting to be made redundant within the next two years. Track record
The Weir Group warned of "significant operational redundancies" in the run up to closing the factory in 2009. He is regarded as one of Scotland's top engineers for what he has done at Glasgow-based engineering group Clyde Blowers and he was awarded an OBE in 2001.
Weir pumps manufactures custom-engineered pumps. Mr McColl started his career as an engineering apprentice with Weir Pumps.
"I am delighted to welcome Weir Pumps (Glasgow) into our portfolio of companies," he said.
"Over two centuries, the business has demonstrated that it has an outstanding track record of designing innovative pumping solutions for customers across a wide range of industries.
"We believe that this heritage, complemented by a highly skilled workforce, will provide us with a strong platform to significantly grow both market share and profitability."
He added that a new "world-class" plant would be ready by the end of March 2009. "
Weir Group announced a year ago it would be relocating Weir Pumps out of its Cathcart site in Glasgow by mid 2009.
The unit makes custom-engineered pumps for the upstream oil and power generation markets.
Weir said it would receive around £45 million for the business, which generated revenues of £70.5m and profits of £4.2m in 2006.