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Highland firm RSE starts year with new boss and bumper results

Profits more than doubled as turnover surged by 71% in its latest full trading year.

RSE operation in England.
RSE's acquisition activity is expected to continue in 2024. Image: Envoy

Ross-shire Engineering (RSE) has started 2024 with a new boss and ambitions to continue its rapid expansion.

The Highlands-based company acquired three businesses during the year to March 31 2023.

These and earlier additions to the group helped it more than double profits and grow turnover by 71% during the period.

RSE’s rapid growth expected to continue in 2023-24 and beyond

Executive director Iain MacGregor, who owns a large stake in the business, told The Press and Journal turnover is likely to increase by another 35% this year.

The growth trajectory is expected to continue rising in future years too.

And RSE – whose growing portfolio of innovative water treatment systems are driving the strong growth – aims to keep up its rate of acquisitions, now running at about three or four each year, he added.

RSE’s growing geographical footprint

RSE is headquartered in Inverness. Its 1,600 employees work across operations in Scotland and England. The firm has engineering and manufacturing facilities in Muir of Ord, Inverness, Dalgety Bay, Cumbernauld, Leeds, Nottingham, Basingstoke and Bristol.

The company’s most recent investment, announced in late November, was a 75% majority stake in Dewsbury-based fluid transfer systems specialist Chem Resist.

Stephen Slessor joind RSE’s board as chief executive yesterday following a 17-year career with construction group Galliford Try.

RSE's new chief executive, Stephen Slessor.
RSE’s new chief executive, Stephen Slessor. Image: Ross Creative Communications

RSE also has a new chief financial officer, Murray Tinning, who was previously finance director at Glasgow-headquartered environmental services company Enva.

Mr MacGregor hailed the two appointments as a “real coup” for RSE, adding: “We felt we needed more leadership bandwidth.

The new-look lineup will steer RSE as it makes further inroads into markets south of the border and, in time, develops its business internationally.

Private equity backing gives RSE firepower for further acquisitions

Its expansion ambitions are backed by private equity firm MML Capital, which acquired a minority stake last year. The value of the deal was undisclosed.

MML and Mr MacGregor, whose father is Highland businessman and Ross County Football Club chairman Roy MacGregor, each owns 38% of the business. The rest of RSE is owned by senior management including the company’s founder, Allan Dallas.

Accounts lodged at Companies House show RSE made pre-tax profits of £13.8m during the 12 months to March 2023, up from £6.5m the year before. Turnover for the latest period totalled £197.7m, compared with £115.5m previously.

RSE executive director Iain MacGregor.
RSE executive director Iain MacGregor. Image: Ross Creative Communications

Mr MacGregor said recent acquisitions accounted for about one-fifth of RSE’s growth, while also driving organic expansion elsewhere in the group by opening up new markets.

He added: “We have a strategy to modernise the water sector by pioneering new technology into factory-built and standardised water treatment facilities.

RSE is growing its reputation for water treatment technology.
RSE is growing its reputation for water treatment technology. Image: Ross Creative Communications

“This approach has proven to reduce construction schedules, enhance quality, provide greater cost certainty and have a positive impact on the environment.

“Growth in the year was attributable to growing established markets in Scotland and opening new markets in England, increasing demand for our products and solutions.”#

RSE was previously based in Muir of Ord.

It is one of the portfolio companies of Inverness-headquartered investment group Envoy, which emerged from a carve-up of Roy MacGregor’s Global Energy Group in 2019.

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