A BOLTON supplier of laboratory equipment has been bought out in a deal worth up to £6.3 million.

Clean Air Limited, based on Dunscar Industrial Estate, designs and manufactures fume cupboards for use in science laboratories in schools, universities and pharmaceutical companies in the UK and overseas. Fume cupboards provide a safe environment for chemical experiments and processes by removing harmful gases.

The buyer is Havelock, an education supply, point of sale display and retail interiors group, based in Scotland.

Clean Air was founded in 1994 by managing director Keith Collier and sales director David Norris, and now employs 40 people.

It sells directly from its headquarters in Bolton and via its sales office in Scotland. Turnover has grown from £900,000 in 1998 to £4 million in 2003.

The deal comprises £4.5 million payable on completion and up to an additional £1.8 million of deferred consideration, depending on profits achieved in 2004 and 2005.

The sale will be conducted in a mixture of cash and loan notes, save for a payment of £1 million on completion. This will come in the form of 886,918 ordinary shares in Havelock (2.7 per cent of the enlarged share capital), which will be issued at a price of 112.75 pence per share -- the average of the mid-market price for the five days preceding completion.

Clean Air will operate as an autonomous subsidiary of Havelock under its existing management team, headed by Mr Collier, Mr Norris and contracts director Ian Heatherington.

Mr Collier said: "The government continues to put significant amounts of money into education, and the contracts currently being awarded are going to be substantial and long-term.

"The merger will give the company far more opportunities to acquire business on a wide range of fronts.

"We have a successful, attractive company because of the highly skilled and motivated workforce. People who work here are offered secure employment and are given the opportunity to progress to meet their individual abilities."

Mr Collier pointed out that workers' terms and conditions had been addressed at a meeting with Havelock Europa as soon as the agreement was completed.

He paid tribute to his wife Lilian, who died at the time the deal was completed, and who, he said, inspired "a caring, respectful attitude" towards the workforce.