Press Release
21 April 2010
Nova exits Detector Technology Limited - The third member of QSA Group of Companies
Nova Capital Management, the specialist acquirer of corporate and private equity portfolios, is pleased to announce that it has sold Detector Technology Limited (DTL), the third member of the QSA Group of companies. In addition, a shareholding of approximately 17.1% in Sprue Aegis, an Ofex+ listed company has been sold.
This completes the sale of the QSA Group of companies, following the earlier sale of QSA Global Inc to ITW and nuclitec GmbH and its French and US based sister companies nuclitec sarl and nuclitec Inc to Eckert & Ziegler Strahlen-und Medizintechnik AG.
The QSA Group companies were specialised suppliers of sealed radioactive sources for use in process control, analytical instrumentation, oil well logging, radiation instrument calibration, nuclear medicine applications, and processing and disposal of low and medium activity waste. DTL, based in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, China was the leading supplier of radioactive components used in smoke detection products and also supplied complete smoke detectors.
QSA Group companies were part of a portfolio of nine non-core businesses acquired from AEA Technology plc in October 2005 by CIP Industries, which Nova has advised since inception.
Ralph Forster, investment partner, Nova commented: "Working with QSA management teams, Nova successfully identified and implemented a number of key opportunities to deliver profitable growth and enhanced value. The total equity value realised for these companies is in excess of £100 million, providing a cash on cash return of 7.4x."