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Sale of Midlands Based Plating Company

Anderson Shaw business brokers is pleased to announce that it has advised the owners of this Midlands-based Plating company on its sale in February 2021.

Established over 50 years ago the current majority owner and MD has been running the business for around 35 years, together with his wife in recent years.  This was a retirement sale.  

The Company provides Hard Chrome and other plating services to mainly defence, aerospace and motor sport customers. The business has a valuable, secret process for a particular plating application and this is one of the factors which gives it an edge over competitors.

After being appointed to sell the business in late 2018, Anderson Shaw commenced the sale activity in earnest in late Spring 2019. BREXIT caused some uncertainty in the sale process, but after several interested parties were found, one was selected to proceed with, and initial terms were agreed with them in December 2019. Due to personal circumstances for the Buyer, matters were delayed until March 2020, at which point further delays were caused by COVID 19. Final Heads of Terms were signed in May 2020 and a lengthy period of due diligence then took place, driven by the impact of COVID 19.

Working closely with the Buyers’ accountant and legal advisor during the DD process, Anderson Shaw was very much engaged throughout, keeping the deal on track, with a final completion in February 2021, some 24 months after the business was first put to the market for sale.

The sellers said “From the start they (“Anderson Shaw”) made it clear that it would not be an overnight task, nor would it be one that we would enjoy the journey through, and then with all the uncertainty of BREXIT and COVID thrown in, the process was probably even more complicated than it might otherwise have been. Throughout though both Richard and Peter were calm and efficient and worked hard to get the best deal for us.

“Whilst we had several interested parties, we sold the business to a private buyer in the end, who, whilst not having direct experience in the market, was very keen on learning about it and committed to developing it further into the future, which was a key requirement for us. We developed a good relationship with the buyer throughout the process and felt that we ended up with a fair deal for both parties at the end, much of this was due to the way Richard and Peter managed the negotiations.

The Anderson Shaw team was led by Peter Wilson and acted as corporate finance advisers to the majority shareholders and freehold owners.


Anderson Shaw is part of GS Verde Group, a leading advisory firm operating across the UK & Ireland

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