Swindon-based medical sterilisation group Synergy Health today acquired US firm SRI/Surgical Express for $25.1m (£16.2m), the market leader in the $2.9bn US hospital sterilisation services (HSS) market.
SRI, which employs 800 people across the US, operates from a network of 10 service centres and four distribution facilities, serving 434 hospital contracts.
The firm made a pre-tax loss of $1.5 (£1m) on revenues of $107.6m (£69.6m) last year. Current trading is in line with the same period in the prior year.
Synergy chief executive said: “SRI is an excellent strategic acquisition for the group providing Synergy with immediate access to the newly-developing HSS market in the US. With the combination of our recently purchased business in New York and SRI, we become the largest provider of outsourced hospital sterilisation services business in the US and create the opportunity to accelerate our local and global leadership.”
Synergy also today reported an 11.6% drop in pre-tax profits to £32.5m in the year to April 1 on revenues increasing by 8.6% to £312m – although it stressed the fall was due to last year's pre-tax profits benefiting from an exceptional gain of £4.7m, due primarily to proceeds of an insurance claim.
Underlying organic revenue growth on a constant currency basis was 5.4%.
Looking ahead chairman Robert Lerwill said: “We are in a strong position and well prepared to tackle the challenges ahead. Our decision to invest in Asia and the Americas has proved an effective strategy to offset more challenging conditions in the UK and Europe. The decision to bring forward our investment in the hospital sterilisation market in the US increases our exposure to what we believe will be a fast growing market.
“We have to acknowledge that Europe’s difficulties could worsen in the coming year, with many EU countries mired in recession. We remain confident that our strategy to expand internationally adequately addresses these risks, and as a result we are cautiously optimistic that our current growth rates will be sustained, especially given our clear objectives, strong management, and talented employees. We anticipate continued good underlying earnings growth in this new financial year.”
