Proactive Investors - Franchise Brands PLC (LON:FRAN) chair Stephen Hemsley, in a statement ahead of today’s AGM, told investors that the company has made a good start to 2023 – with the proposed ‘transformational’ acquisition of Pirtek Europe being the notable highlight.
“The acquisition of Pirtek Europe will further transform the group by diversifying the range of emergency response services provided and our geographical reach and customer base,” Hemsley said.
“This will provide greater resilience to earnings and provide a platform for the acceleration in the growth of our business.
“We, therefore, look forward to the rest of 2023 and beyond with great confidence."
The company, today, highlighted that its B2B Division witnessed strong growth in system sales in the first quarter, driven by Metro Rod's record performance.
Filta UK's meanwhile continues its integration, focusing on customer service improvement and medium-term cost reduction, it added, whilst in North America Filta has also seen a ‘robust’ quarterly performance.
Elsewhere, the B2C division saw an improvement in franchisee recruitment in the quarter, with the ChipsAway business returning to levels a year ago though it added that the loss of franchisees in 2022 and increased overheads have impacted the unit’s income.
Pirtek Europe operates 213 service centres and 838 mobile service vehicles across eight countries, with a royalty-free, indefinite master franchise licence agreement for 16 European countries.
The acquisition is expected to advance the Board's ambition of creating a market-leading international B2B multi-brand franchisor and provide a low-cost platform to launch the group's brands into new markets.
At a further general meeting later this week the company’s shareholders will vote on the proposed acquisition and, if approved, the transaction is expected to complete by 21 April.
Earlier in April the company announced the proposed deal to buy the Pirtek business for £200mln and last week it closed a £92mln equity raise to fund the transaction.