A CASH-RICH Indian family is being helped by a York firm of accountants to buy up UK businesses, many of them in Yorkshire.

Garbutt & Elliott, of York, is working with Ardsley Industrial Ventures, headed up by a US-based member of the family, to identify and acquire a series of medium-sized manufacturing enterprises which, with a cash injection, exposure to new markets and high-level managerial guidance, can be developed into a £75million broad portfolio.

The family-owned group in India is said to be looking for a long-term, “multi-generational” ownership of the businesses it acquires, which will focus on the manufacturing and industrial sectors in Yorkshire and the north. Managers will be given a high degree of independence and accountability and the family has said it is “not interested” in quick disposals or sales, is not seeking to asset strip and is committed to staff development and community social responsibility.

So far the team is understood to have appraised about ten Yorkshire manufacturing businesses and made one acquisition outside the region, steel fabricator Impactbond Ltd, Kings Lynn, Norfolk, in March.

Richard Feltham, Garbutt & Elliott’s corporate finance director, said they were seeking businesses in a wide range of sectors, including electronic controls, engineering, aerospace, steel fabrication and nuclear, or sustainable, power generation.

Mr Feltham said: “Our brief from Ardsley Industrial Ventures (UK) is to find businesses with a turnover up to £5 million which, with the right strategic guidance and funding, can grow and become more profitable.

“They can currently be profitable, break-even, or even loss-making enterprises as long as they have solid potential, and we are also keen to talk to those seeking an exit route as they approach retirement or industrial groups seeking to offload non-core enterprises.

“Ardsley Industrial Ventures (UK) is a cash buyer, which is particularly attractive in the current climate when bank funding remains difficult.”