By Bill Bregar
SENIOR STAFF REPORTER
Published: October 15, 2013 2:47 pm ET
Updated: October 15, 2013 2:53 pm ET
DÜSSELDORF, GERMANY — Reece Group Ltd., a British holding company that has businesses in defense and road construction, and diversified into the energy sector in 2012, has made another move in that direction by purchasing Pipe Coil Technology Ltd., based in Newcastle, England.
Pipe Coil Technology (Hall 11/B64) is exhibiting at K 2013 in Düsseldorf.
Pipe Coil Technology makes automated coiling, packaging and handling equipment for flexible pipe and tubing, conduit and hose. Applications include pipe for gas, water, sewer, plumbing and drainage; tubing for irrigation, medical and automotive; garden and industrial hose; and electrical conduit.
In 2010, PCT opened a factory in Highland Heights, Ohio, near Cleveland, to meet demand for high-speed coiling of high density polyethylene pipe in the booming U.S. shale drilling sector for oil and natural gas.
Pipe Coil Technology employs 40 people and generates sales of more than £6 million.
After the acquisition, Reece Group, also based in Newcastle, will employ more than 500 people and generate sales of £100 million from its five companies. Terms were not disclosed.
Gordon Fiddes, PCT’s managing director, will remain with the winding-machinery business.
“We are looking to working with the Reese Group and taking the business forward, in particular in the export market, where Reece Group has had considerable experience and success,” Fiddes said in a press release announcing the deal on Oct. 8, a week before the K show.
Phil Kite, the Reece Group CEO responsible for acquisitions, said Reece wants to broaden its product scope. “Our goal is to create a more broadly based engineering business which is less dependent on defense, with strength in the oil and gas, construction and subsea markets,” he said in the release.
Over the past 18 months, Reece has purchased three companies. The others are a business that specializes in pothole repair on highways and Responsive Engineering Group, which does contract manufacturing in the energy and undersea markets.
“Pipe Coil Technology adds a third product company to our business, enabling us to explore another new market,” said Reece Group Chairman John Reece.
Reece Group was founded in 1980 by John Reece and his father, Alan Reece, who taught engineering at Newcastle University. | 
