Cleanroom builder SRBA spreads wings to US

With effect from 22 October 2024, the SRBA Group has acquired a 60% stake from US-based Corporate Construction Inc, which specializes in building cleanrooms for the US market. The SRBA Group is thus fulfilling its promise to expand its scope of operations through Merger and Aquisition on an international level.

Corporate Construction Inc is based in the state of Connecticut, immediately adjacent to New York State, in the town of Brookfield. Both founders Jonathan Draper and Joseph Viola will continue to run the day-to-day management of the 25-year-old company with 60 permanent employees, possessing the talent, training and dedication to deliver the highest attainable quality, along with a flexible shell of around 150 colleagues.

Two top-priority strategic objectives

In early 2023, the merger between Brecon Cleanroom Systems and the Muller Afbouw Groep led to the creation of the new company SRBA Group. Two strategic objectives had top priority in this: the Controlled Environment (CE) division wished to expand its field of activity through Merger and Aquisition on an international level, and group turnover was to exceed € 100 million by 2025. So now that is going to happen.

The new 'Corporate Construction SRBA' will continue its contracting and construction management activities as ever in the US, in the industrial and commercial market sectors. The revenue in residential construction, maintenance and renovation activities, is mainly realized in Connecticut and surrounding states. The range of industrial clients in general, and the relationships working in the High-tech and Life science sectors specifically, require a more national spread distributed across the US.

Turnover share 80 % within CE market

Corporate Construction expects to achieve sales of $65 million by 2024. In recent years, the CE market has experienced strong growth and is the most important division in the organization with over $50 million of turnover share. Almost 60% of this CE turnover is realized for the international semi-conductor industry, many of which are of Dutch origin and well known by SRBA CE as well. Life Science market segments such as Healthcare and (Bio-)Pharma are growing strongly with 40% revenue share.

Over the past 10 years, Corporate Construction Inc. has earned its spurs as a 'General Contracting' partner for the specialized CE market, whereby the realization of the structural outer shell is often carried out in combination with the construction of the indoor cleanroom and lab facilities. The assignments are mostly Design and Built projects, like SRBA-CE's modus operandi in the European market. It is precisely the combined experience and knowledge of cleanroom technology, on the one hand, and the expected global annual growth of 7-8% in this sector, on the other, that makes this acquisition so interesting.

Next challenge: Germany

'The management of the Dutch CE division is keen to share the various product systems and joint knowledge as soon as possible in order to expand our customer base on both sides of the ocean as a fully-fledged CE partner with new relationships in the aforementioned market sectors." Says SRBA Group CFO Wim van Ree, responsible for M&A. "It was a great challenge for the SRBA Group to be able to realize this acquisition in America. The next challenge now is to acquire a company in the German speaking countries!”