Halfords has redoubled its focus on offering vehicle servicing and tyres with the £62 million acquisition of the National service centre network.
It has completed a £63.4m equity fundraising to support the deal which sees the addition of 239 garages and 60 mobile fitting vans from National Tyres and Autocare, Viking Wholesale Tyres, and Tyre Shopper-branded operations – along with 1,400 new employees.
The move follows the acquisition of South East motoring services provider Universal Tyre and Autocentres for £15m earlier this year and McConechy’s and Tyres on the Drive in 2019.
The Times reported that the majority of UK motorists will be within a 20-minute drive of a Halfords garage following the acquisition of National.
Its network now totals 604 garages and 404 bike shops.
Graham Stapleton, chief executive of Halfords, said: “This acquisition helps cement our position as the UK’s largest vehicle service, maintenance and repair business.
“It will also see us deliver on our established strategy of evolving Halfords to become a motoring services focused business, with motoring revenue set to represent more than 70% of our pro-forma revenue following the acquisition.”
National delivered revenues of £158m and earnings of £3m in a COVID-hit 2020 trading period.
Forecasts suggest it should deliver earnings of £5.9m in a normal year’s trading.
Halfords is said to be paying £62m to National shareholders Alan Revie, Joan Revie, John Taylor, Julie Taylor and John Caldwell to acquire busines.
It also plans to make a further investment of £17m on capital expenditure and £2m on integration costs at the Stockport-based aftersales provider.
The Times reported that National chief executive Alan Revie stands to make more than £33m out of the deal.
Revie, who started out replacing wheels at National Tyres and became a branch manager aged 19, returned to the company as CEO in 2001.
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