A CARE home company in Bolton is set to make £7.5m for the Midlands family firm that bought it last month.

The new enlarged company is set to float on the Alternative Investment Market in the new year, valued at £20m.

Birmingham-based Claimar Care bought Bolton-based Abbeydale Care and the residential care division of Ribble Valley Care last month for an undisclosed sum.

The flotation will see Claimar founders Jim and Birdie Ceaser, and their daughter Claire, receive about £3.5 million for selling some of their shareholding.

A further £4 million will be raised through the issue of new shares, which will reduce the family's holding from above 90 per cent to around 70 per cent.

Mark Hales, Claimar's chief executive and Claire Ceaser's husband, said that the flotation would enable the company to take advantage of growth opportunities

Mr Hales said: "Abbeydale Home Care was a strategically important acquisition for us.

"It has a skilled, experienced management and staff and a number of valuable long-term local authority contracts which, together with our existing staff and contracts, made number one in the region.

"Importantly, the combined resources of the enlarged group enabled the company to grow enough to float on the market."

Abbeydale Home Care operates from five offices including the Enterprise Centre on Washington Street, Bolton.

Other offices are in Great Harwood, Chorley, Nelson and Salford. Abbeydale employs more than 260 care staff, who provide more than 6,000 hours of home care services each week, mostly under contract to a number of local authorities including Bolton, Lancashire, Salford, Bury, and Blackburn."

Claimar already has an established position in the town with an existing office in Gladstone Road, Farnworth, and also in Wigan, St. Helens, Middleton and Ashton-under-Lyne.

Following the acquisition of Abbeydale, Claimar will employ more than 900 staff.

It will become one of the largest providers of residential care services in the North-west.