Browne Jacobson dealmakers advise on CTS’s Palatine backed portfolio acquisition of Silkstone Environmental

Browne Jacobson’s private equity team have advised on the acquisition of Silkstone Environmental Limited (SEL) by Construction Testing Solutions (CTS) (a Palatine Private Equity backed portfolio asset) for an undisclosed consideration.

The transaction was led by private equity partner Gareth Davies, alongside Manchester based private equity senior associate Ryan Brown.

Planning consultancy and environmental monitoring business, Silkstone Environmental was set up in 2000 and is headquartered in Sheffield. The business specialises in advising the construction industry (which includes mines and quarries, waste management, new builds, commercial builds, and civil engineering) on minerals and waste management planning and permitting, site investigation, environmental monitoring and surveying.

This acquisition is part of CTS’s ambitions to further grow its offering in the environmental, landfill, quarry monitoring and permit planning arenas.

CTS are a leading provider of construction consulting and testing services and have headquarters in Leicester and a nationwide network of 16 laboratories and offices. CTS supports all sectors of the construction market including residential, commercial, rail, road, airports, tunnelling, mining, and utilities as well as brownfield regeneration.

This is the third acquisition for CTS that Browne Jacobson’s private equity team have advised on in the last 8 months. Previous acquisitions have included Card GeoTechnics and Nicholls Colton Group.

Phil Coles, CEO of CTS said: “This latest acquisition supports our overall growth strategy and focus on delivering market leading construction testing and consulting solutions to our clients. It further strengthens our position in the UK construction testing and consulting market and provides numerous synergies and opportunities that benefit both CTS and our clients.

“I would like to give my thanks to Gareth and Ryan and the rest of the Browne Jacobson team for their work on this strategic acquisition. Their excellent work on the previous CTS acquisitions meant they were first choice as advisers. As ever, their speedy pragmatic advice and wealth of private equity experience was of very high quality.”

Gareth Davies, private equity partner at Browne Jacobson, added: “It was fantastic to work with the CTS team again on another important strategic acquisition. There are noticeable synergies between the makeup of CTS and SEL which will prove to be very valuable to their joint consumer base and will really boost the service line of the business. We look forward to watching the further growth of the CTS brand.”