LAST year’s acquisition of Co Tyrone’s Skea Egg Farms helped turn Charles Crawford’s Lisnaskea-based egg operation into a £175 million business, new accounts show.
The Fermanagh food entrepreneur behind Ready Egg Group, bought the Donaghmore-based Skea Eggs in March 2022.
Ready Egg produces and processes a range of cooked egg products, including pasteurised liquid eggs, scrambled eggs and hard boiled eggs.
Most of its products end up in the food manufacturing industry in Britain, where its clients include McDonalds and M&S.
Founded in the 1970s by Matthew Hayes, Skea supplies around 9.5 million eggs per week to major supermarket chains including M&S and Sainsbury's.
New accounts for Mr Crawford’s parent group Lough Erne Investments valued the deal at £33.46m.
The report, published by Companies House, confirm the acquisition was settled in a cash deal done on March 31 2022.
The net assets of the acquisition was valued at £11m, with ‘goodwill arising on acquisition’ accounting for £22.4m.
The report states the goodwill represented the value of existing workforce and synergies that the group is expected to benefit through combining the separate businesses.
The acquisition doubled the workforce of the Lough Erne Investments group, taking it from 151 to 306.
Ready Egg Products also operate a production site in Chesterfield, England.
The new accounts show revenue rose almost three-fold from £64.6m to £174.7m for the year ending December 25 2022.
However, new costs taken on through the merged businesses put a slight dent in profit.
Profit before tax was down 11.4 per cent year-on-year to £8.8m.
