GROWTH-hungry haulage and warehousing business James Irlam Logistics is looking to spend up to é30m on acquisitions as it seeks to expand across the UK.

The Cheshire-based, family-owned company is targeting the south west and east of England as well as Wales and Scotland, chief executive David Irlam said today.

He has appointed corporate finance experts at the Manchester office of accountants and business advisers Grant Thornton to find potential targets.

Mr Irlam, 46, whose grandfather James established the business with one truck in 1949, said: "We just want to keep growing and growing and are looking at areas of the country where we feel we need to establish a presence.

"We are very strong up the middle of the country with depots in the north west, Yorkshire and the Midlands, but we have never really branched out into Scotland, Wales, the east of England or the Devon and Cornwall region."

At present, James Irlam has a fleet of 350 trucks and operates from nine depots, with its headquarters on Knutsford Road, Chelford. Staff numbers have grown to 600.

Turnover is more than é70m and clients include supermarkets, other retailers and blue-chip companies.

400 trucks

Mr Irlam said he hopes to have around 400 trucks on the road by next year. He is seeking to buy two or three smaller businesses for up to é10m each.

He runs the firm with his brothers Stewart, Michael and Andrew, who are finance director, managing director and operations director respectively.

Mr Irlam said he frequently gets takeover approaches from banks, venture capitalists and multi-national companies but rejects them all.

"We've had quite a lot of people knocking on the door in the last 18 months, but at the moment we feel we have quite a young team - I am the eldest - and we are still as hungry and passionate about the business as when we started.

"We are putting feelers out to see what is available out there, as we would like to be able to offer our customers a fuller logistics solution."

Ali Sharifi, a partner at Grant Thornton who is leading the firm's team working on the James Irlam expansion drive, said: "David's ambition is to grow the business and we are hoping to help him find the right targets - smaller logistics businesses to expand the geographical reach and services James Irlam provides." Tweet