Energy Assets buys Gazprom's UK meter reading arm

Energy Assets, the provider of gas metering services, has bought Gazprom Global Energy Solutions from Russian gas giant Gazprom.

The acquisition has an enterprise value of £13.5m, which includes an initial cash consideration of £6.0m, potential cash earn-out payment of £3.0m (payable dependent upon the level of data logger installations carried out by Energy Assets) and existing Gazprom Global Energy Solutions (GGES) debt of £4.5m that is to be refinanced upon acquisition.

Based in Manchestr, GGEs provides fully integrated Metering, Automated Meter Reading (AMR) and Siteworks services to gas suppliers and blue-chip clients across the industrial and commercial (I&C) sector.

GGES manages a portfolio of some 27,000 data points across gas, water and electricity sectors. When combined with Energy Assets' existing portfolio of around 21,000 data loggers, the resulting logger portfolio will be one of the most significant in the UK I&C market, Energy Assets claimed.

GGES generated revenues of £5.1m and profit before tax of £0.2m in 2011, after the deduction of intra-group charges. The directors believe that combining the resources of both businesses will further enhance earnings expectations for financial year 2013/14 onwards.

At the end of 2011, GGES had gross assets of £6.5m.

JH