MCBURNEY TRANSPORT GROUP acquired by DFDS

DFDS agreed on 29 December 2022 to acquire McBurney Transport Group, the Northern Ireland family-owned road haulier, from its founder Norman McBurney, at an enterprise value of DKK1.1B. McBurney generated revenue of and an EBITDA of , an EV/EBITDA multiple of . DFDS expected the purchase to raise its financial leverage by 0.1x in terms of net interest-bearing debt to EBITDA, and to add to both earnings per share and return on invested capital, against its minimum after-tax target of 8%. The acquisition fitted DFDS’ focus on cold chain logistics and overlapped with the operations it already ran in the region, with the possibility of connecting McBurney’s traffic to its pan-European transport network. DFDS also expected savings from greater purchasing scale and better use of its network. Regulatory approval came on 23 February 2023 and the deal completed five days later, on 28 February, when McBurney was consolidated into the DFDS group. Carolyn Carmichael was appointed managing director of the business, which joined the cold chain unit of DFDS’ logistics division. Integration was expected to take about a year, with the IT systems to follow.

The acquisition of Mcburney Transport Group is part of the growth strategy of Dfds, which already has several external growth operations under its belt, notably Lucey Transport Logistics in 2022.