LAVA Advisory Partners is pleased to have facilitated the purchase of Needingworth Quarry by Essex-based Brice Aggregates. 

LAVA was contacted by Oliver Brice, Managing Director of Brice Aggregates, with the suspicion that an attractive opportunity may be imminent. Heidelberg Materials Aggregates had recently decided to add Mick George to their UK portfolio. However, the regulator had reservations over the scale of the subsequent company and what it would mean for UK competition law, and so required Heidelberg to shed assets to mitigate this before the acquisition could progress. 

Brice was keen to register their interest in the available properties and knew LAVA would find a novel solution to make it happen: 

With LAVA Partner, Hamish Martin, working as a trusted advisor to introduce Brice Aggregates into a sale process that was already underway, it quickly became apparent that the most attractive asset was Needingworth Quarry in St Ives. Hamish established the perfect niche for Brice, where other interested parties were either too large to navigate similar anticompetitive concerns to those that Heidelberg were facing, or without the required wherewithal for such a significant acquisition.  

At LAVA, nothing makes us happier than facilitating mergers and acquisitions with unique challenges and opportunities, and to achieve this purchase for Brice Aggregates is another excellent example of our tenacity in pursuing just the right result:

To discuss your own, unique M&A needs from any side of a transaction, please get in touch!