Marshall Motor Holdings in Cambridge has made a near-£107 million cash acquisition that significantly extends its UK franchise empire.

The quoted business has funded the takeover of Ridgeway Garages (Newbury) Ltd from existing resources.

CEO Daksh Gupta described it as a transformational deal which sees the company expand its geographic footprint from 19 to 25 counties, add 30 franchises and increase its product range and freehold property assets. It also makes Marshall Motors the seventh largest motor group in the UK.

Ridgeway is a multi-franchise dealer group operating across the affluent southern home counties of England, Wiltshire and Dorset, representing 12 brands via 30 franchised dealerships.

Its brands comprise Audi, BMW, Jaguar, Land Rover, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz, Mercedes-Benz Commercials, MINI, SKODA, smart, Volkswagen and Volkswagen commercial vehicles.

Ridgeway also operates five own-branded Select multi-brand used car centres, two trade parts specialists, two service centres authorised by both SAAB and SEAT and two standalone body shops and a pre delivery inspection centre.

Its consolidated FY15 revenues were £722.6m, adjusted EBITDA was £20.2m and year-end shareholders’ funds were £55.4m including £15.2m of net debt.

Gupta said there were strong strategic benefits from the takeover as well as an attractive financial payback.

He said the acquisition would be significantly earnings enhancing in FY16, FY17 and subsequent years and that return on investment would be materially in excess of the group’s WACC (weighted average cost of capital) in FY17 and subsequent years. WACC is the rate that a company is expected to pay on average to all its security holders to finance its assets.

The deal also strengthens the group’s freehold property portfolio, given Ridgeway’s 13 freehold properties (£53.9m of land and buildings as at December 31).

Gupta said: “This is a significant strategic and value enhancing acquisition for MMH that will move us from the 10th to the seventh largest UK motor dealer group.

“The acquisition, which is in line with our stated strategy at IPO to grow scale with existing brand partners, further builds on our acquisition last year of SG Smith by cementing our geographic footprint into the affluent southern home counties of England, Wiltshire and Dorset.

“We have funded this acquisition from our existing balance sheet capabilities. The board expects the acquisition of Ridgeway to deliver significant earnings enhancement and returns materially greater than our weighted average cost of capital.

“Ridgeway is a company I have been associated with since 2007. David Newman and his team have built an excellent business with fantastic senior management, great staff, strong performance and a similar culture to MMH.”
 

Cambridge superchip architect ARM has paid $350 million cash for UK imaging technology innovator Apical.

CEO Simon Segars said the deal supported ARM’s long term growth strategy by enabling new imaging products for next generation vehicles, security systems, robotics, mobile and any consumer, smart building, industrial or retail application where intelligent image processing was needed.

Driverless cars is just one of the vertical markets being targeted by the imaging power play.

Apical’s technology will complement the ARM Mali™ graphics, display and video processor roadmap with a number of in-demand products.

Apical’s imaging and embedded computer vision technology will allow next generation devices to understand and act intelligently on information from their environment.

The Loughborough-based business is one of the UK’s fastest-growing technology companies and its advanced imaging products are used in more than 1.5 billion smartphones and approximately 300 million other consumer/industrial devices including IP cameras, digital stills cameras and tablets.

Segars said: “Computer vision is in the early stages of development and the world of devices powered by this exciting technology can only grow from here. “Apical is at the forefront of embedded computer vision technology, building on its leadership in imaging products that already enable intelligent devices to deliver amazing new user experiences.

“The ARM partnership is solving the technical challenges of next generation products such as driverless cars and sophisticated security systems. These solutions rely on the creation of dedicated image computing solutions and Apical’s technologies will play a crucial role in their delivery.”

ARM evolved from the need to bring flexible and energy-efficient processing to a range of applications. Some 25 years and more than 86 billion ARM-based silicon chips later, the company’s technology now reaches 80 per cent of the global population.

Alongside its ARM Cortex® processors, ARM licenses Mali graphics, video and display processors. In 2015 Mali graphics processors became the world’s most shipped IP graphics core.
 

Cambridge cluster product innovator 42 Technology has unveiled a novel concept for in vitro diagnostic (IVD) testing that could see smartphones and tablets bridge the gap between multi-step manual lab tests and the automated test-specific readers increasingly used in healthcare.

The new concept – called inVi – will enable diagnostics companies to develop a new generation of point of care tests specifically designed to work using a smartphone to create accurate, repeatable tests without the expense of dedicated reading equipment.

42 Technology says the approach could also give patients, communities and healthcare providers easier access to existing tests that may previously have been too costly for routine or widespread use because they needed an expensive customised reader.

Andrew Chapman, head of 42 Technology’s healthcare business, said: “inVi will help diagnostic companies to target significant new market opportunities without having to invest the time and resources in developing their own reading equipment.

“Using a smartphone as a reader could also open the door to a wider range of tests for use at home or in GP surgeries, as well as in remote locations or where healthcare resources are scarce.”

inVi creates an affordable portable IVD device by exploiting multiple embedded sensing technologies that exist in all smartphones. 

For example: using the smartphone touchscreen to detect when a user has successfully positioned a test cartridge, or actuated manual valves or pumping elements within the cartridge; or using the phone’s accelerometer to verify that the user has performed sufficient shaking to achieve a required degree of reagent mixing.

Previous approaches have been limited to using the phone’s camera to read the colour of a test strip or its touchscreen as a user interface to another piece of connected equipment.

The inVi architecture is broadly similar to existing systems where a diagnostic test cartridge contains all the necessary reagents alongside elements that can be activated by and/or interact with the reading instrument (for example plungers that act on physical elements within the cartridge). But with inVi it is the user who provides the actuation and their smartphone both instructs and verifies the steps as they happen.

The user simply adds a sample, positions the transparent cartridge on the touchscreen after which the smartphone app confirms the correct positioning and starts the test. 

The app then prompts the user to carry out specific actions, illuminating different regions of the screen as required, and provides feedback to confirm the successful completion of each step.

When the test is complete the smartphone ‘reads’ the result depending on the end-point of the specific assay: in some cases the camera will be used to detect colour changes against a comparator, and in others an ‘intelligent’ element within the cartridge will measure an electrochemical change and transfer the result wirelessly to the smartphone.

inVi was so well received when it was shown to selected industry experts at this year’s Medtec Europe event that 42 Technology has decided to progress it commercially. 

The consultancy is now actively seeking commercial partners to help develop the core technology and approach and to bring the first inVi diagnostics to market.

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: The inVi technology in action

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Cambridge product design innovator Innovia Technology has deployed cutting-edge science to help swimwear manufacturer Arena produce an upgrade of a pioneering carbon technology suit.

The first version was worn by 35 medallists in the pool at the London Olympics – including 10 gold medal winners – and the powered-up new version is tipped to make a splash in this summer’s Games in Rio.

The new POWERSKIN Carbon-Ultra suit incorporates an outer ‘carbon cage’ shell to maximise hydrodynamics with a revolutionary inner ‘Ultra-Link System’ to optimise the athlete’s physiology.

The ‘power inside’ concept was inspired by Arena’s work with Innovia, a partnership that has flourished since 2008; the collaboration has provided new levels of theoretical understanding into how a swimsuit can be designed to maximise the effectiveness of a swimmer’s action in the water.

Arena was the first swimwear company to engage in textile and fluid dynamics research with the aim of developing the fastest, lightest, smoothest and most durable products for competitive and recreational swimmers.

The R &D  team at Arena, along with Innovia and an international scientific network, have analysed how introducing an active inner layer can maximise the effectiveness of the swimmer’s actions in the water, over and above the existing benefits of the POWERSKIN Carbon series.

Andy Milton, innovation consultant at Innovia, says that the POWERSKIN Carbon series took high performance swimwear to a new level: “To support the breakthrough design, we integrated deep knowledge of the physiology and mechanics of swimming with insights into apparel development. This embraced fluid mechanics, material science, physiology and psychology.

“As a result, we were able to provide arena with options for the design of the suit, including guidelines for fabric construction, and also advice for communicating the benefits of the technology effectively to professionals.”

The POWERSKIN Carbon series introduced a carbon weave, which provides intelligent compression, keeping the athlete’s body in the optimum position at all times. Carbon fibres are thinner than a human hair and intricately woven into the suits. The result is a suit that is remarkably strong and durable, and able to compress without constricting.

These strong fibres also prevent the immense stress on the muscles that many swimmers experience while competing. The new suit takes carbon technology further: The outer shell features an Ultra-Cage where increased carbon in the material provides a strongly anisotropic response (‘stretchy’ in one direction; stiff in another) accurately conforming to an athlete’s shape, distributing pressure to streamline the body and make every movement count.

The Carbon-Ultra suit also incorporates a new level of support and movement management with an internal structure: the Ultra-Link System. By connecting key muscle groups and isolating upper and lower body movements, this system is said to increase a swimmer’s efficiency and improve body position in the water. And by targeting specific compression zones, it further supports and streamlines the body to reduce turbulence and drag.

Along with Innovia, the arena scientific network also includes Kinetech Labs, the University of Bologna Faculty of Exercise and Sport Sciences, and the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne.