Breedon completes Tarmac asset swap

Breedon Group announced it has completed an asset swap with Tarmac that secures 25Mt of additional mineral reserves and some 50,000tpa of extra asphalt capacity in four key UK locations.

The Group has acquired from Tarmac three quarries near Inverness, Penrith and Wrexham, together with a quarry and asphalt plant near Porthmadog, in exchange for 23 of its ready-mixed concrete plants and a payment to Tarmac of GBP6.1m in cash.

Commenting on today’s announcement Pat Ward, Breedon’s Group CEO, said: “This is an excellent, margin-enhancing deal for us and fully in line with our strategy of strengthening our asset base and improving the quality of our earnings.

“It gives us a significant quantity of high-quality mineral reserves, including a scarce source of high PSV stone and a new asphalt plant in west Wales capable of producing up to 50,000tpa of material. It also gives us a significant new source of hardstone in the heartland of our Scottish business, at Daviot Quarry near Inverness where we already have an asphalt plant.”

“At the same time it streamlines our concrete network and enables us to release value by relinquishing peripheral plants which we couldn’t supply internally and which in many cases were on short-term leases.

“This means we have become much less dependent on third-party aggregates. We an now supply more of our concrete and asphalt plants with our own minerals, with the secure backing of nearly 900Mt of reserves and resources across the UK and Ireland.”

Following the deal, Breedon operates more than 70 quarries, 40 asphalt plants and around 180 ready-mixed concrete plants, extending from the north of Scotland to the west of Ireland and the southeast of England.