New owners for Wolverhampton stamp printers
The security printing company at Wolverhampton, which prints stamps for the UK, has changed hands.
Spectra Systems Corporation has completed a deal worth more than £10 million to acquire Cartor Holdings which also has a facility at Meauce in France.
Spectra is a leader in machine-readable high speed banknote authentication, brand protection technologies and gaming security software
Cartor, through its three wholly-owned subsidiary companies, supplies postage stamps to more than 180 administrations globally.
It also prints and produces tax stamps, vouchers, coupons, certificates and security documents.
Cartor has worked with Spectra for the past two years.
The acquisition comes at a time when Cartor is poised for growth and will use Spectra's technical expertise.
Each member of Cartor's senior management team will enter into a new employment agreement. The company will also enter a new 20-year lease for the purpose-built manufacturing facility at Valiant Way on the i54 Business Park.
Dr Nabil Lawandy, chief executive of Spectra, said the acquisition of Cartor would solidify its position in the polymer substrate market and expand the business through new sales channels.
In the year to the end of September 2022, Cartor generated pre-tax profit of £1.01 million on turnover of £16m.
Spectra has bought 100 per cent of the outstanding shares of Cartor.
It will assume up to £4.5 million of Cartor's current external debt.
Andrew Brigham, managing director of Cartor, said: "The acquisition comes at a time when Cartor is poised for growth and under Nabil's leadership we hope to accelerate this and unlock new opportunities. The Cartor group expects to leverage Spectra's deep technical expertise and Cartor's operational 'know-how' to deliver game changing solutions to its current and future customers."
