Gordons advises on fourth acquisition in two years for AIM-listed Brulines

Leeds and Bradford law firm Gordons has advised AIM-listed Brulines, the market leader of real time monitoring systems and data management service provider for the UK Leisure sector on the conditional placing of nearly 4 million shares.

Priced at £1.25 per share, the placing is intended to raise approximately £4.7million pre costs for Brulines to enable the company to take advantage of further complementary acquisition and commercial opportunities as and when they arise, as well as strengthening considerably the Group’s balance sheet. The placing shares are expected to be admitted to AIM on 30 December 2008 when trading will commence.

Based in Stockton on Tees, Brulines provides draught alcoholic drinks volume, quality, machine and profit protection systems for more than 22,500 pubs across the UK. Using state-of-the-art technology, the company accurately monitors operational activities, as well as volume and revenue protection.

News of the placing came immediately after the company announced the acquisition of Vianet Limited – a market leading telemetry and data capture solutions provider to the vending industry.

This deal represents the fourth acquisition for Brulines since it floated on AIM in October 2006. The company took a controlling stake in Coin Metrics in 2007, acquired rival, Nucleus Data, in January 2008 and in October 2008 acquired Edensure Ltd – a specialist service provider in Intelligent Forecourt solutions of advanced wet stock management systems for the UK petrol retail industry. Gordons advised on all four deals.

Both the placing of shares and the acquisition of Vianet were negotiated on behalf of Brulines by Peter Barton, partner in Gordons corporate department, who was assisted by senior corporate solicitor Jonathan Asquez.

Speaking of these developments, Peter said: “We are very pleased to have been able to advise Brulines on another acquisition aiding its growth strategy and the placing of shares with institutional investors endorses their support for this growing group”.