New Woodcats board to strengthen structure - Capital investment plan comes later
Published:Monday | September 10, 2018 | 12:00 AM
The acquisition of Woodcats International Limited was a $355 million deal, buyer Derrimon Trading Company Limited disclosed in a new market filing.
Derrimon's Chief Financial Officer Ian Kelly said the pallet maker's board, on which he now sits as a director, will be focusing on organisational strengthening.
At a board meeting of Woodcats on September 6, Derrick Cotterell, Ian Kelly, Earl Richards, Patrick Mignott and Nicole Burger were appointed to the board, which also includes the son of the previous owner.
The new members took seats vacated by Joyce Collings, previous owner Christopher Collings, and company secretary Donna Marie Watson.
The deal, which takes Derrimon outside its core business of food distribution and retail grocery, includes 45,000 square feet of factory and warehouse space at Woodcats' 27 Slipe Road base in Kingston.
Woodcats was founded by Collings in 1999. The company makes a full range of pallet solutions for warehouse storage and export, it reconditions and repairs used pallets, distributes plastic pallets, and produces shipping boxes, crates, and lobster traps.
Kelly said that for this financial year, Derrimon's objective is to strengthen the organisations in key areas such as logistics, purchasing, risk management, treasury and receivables management, and accounting.
"We will be also building out the new five-year strategic and one-year operational plan with the current management team, after which any capital investments which are required to drive growth will be allocated," he said.