MONTHS-long uncertainty over the future of £3 million turnover Kelan Circuits Ltd of Boroughbridge has ended in a management buy-out steered by a York legal practice.

Managing director Mike Bannard plus operations director Roger Howard and technical director Lindsay Edgar have bought the 29-year old firm for an undisclosed sum from Advance International Limited.

It has meant reducing staff from 80 to 70, but Mr Bannard says that some of those who left were volunteers and all had now found employment.

The deal, financially backed by Yorkshire Bank, was sealed by Andrew Lindsay of York solicitors Denison Till and by Brown Butler & Co, chartered accountants in Leeds.

Some 18 months ago Kelan survived a squeeze on the electronics industry which saw the demise of many other circuit board makers. Now come the benefits: a surge in its business of supplying printed circuit boards to the extent of an expected increase in turnover next year of up to 20 per cent.

Mr Bannard said: "One of the benefits of the buy-out has been that we can take our decisions to invest. We have made modest investments already, but we now intend to plough profits back into the business.

"One of the reason that so many other printed circuit board operations failed was because they suffered from a lack of investment."

Kelan began operations in Harrogate in 1971 and in 1985 was acquired by Farnell Electronics Plc, relocating near to its present site in Wetherby Road, Boroughbridge.

Ten years later Farnell decided to sell its manufacturing division and operations, including Kelan, were acquired by Advance International Ltd, backed by Cinven and the Royal Bank of Scotland.