Infrastructure, construction and building products group Hill & Smith Holdings PLC has bought the UK’s leading supplier of traffic counting and classifying equipment.

Privately owned Counters and Accessories Ltd, which is based in Milton Keynes, has been acquired from its founder shareholder, Geoffrey Kent, in a £5m cash deal. Mr Kent is remaining with the company for the time being as a consultant.

Counters and Accessories has annual sales of around £3.5m and reported pre tax profits of £1.4m in the year ended 30 September 2005.

The business, which manufactures and supplies data collection equipment for use by traffic engineers, has 19 employees, all of whom are set to remain with the business.

The firm uses advanced technology to produce battery and solar powered traffic counters, which can record the flow of up to eight lanes of traffic.

The deal to acquire Counters and Accessories is the latest in a string of carefully targeted acquisitions by West Midlands-based Hill & Smith Holdings PLC.

Chief executive David Grove said: “Our strategy remains to focus on and invest in that part of our core business which serves the transport infrastructure market.

“We have used innovation and product development to create and sustain our competitive edge and this is the context for our latest purchase.

“Although a small company, Counters and Accessories will bring much greater benefits than its size would suggest.

“It is a good strategic fit with our core business portfolio and is an ideal complement for our recent acquisition of Techspan, which supplies electronic information displays for transport systems”.

Hill & Smith Holdings PLC’s wider product range for the transport infrastructure market includes safety barriers and street lighting columns.

Counters and Accessories’ products have been tailored for use in a variety of situations, with one even recording the flow of bicycles. Many recorders employ specialist software for ease of interaction.

The business also manufactures the Speed Indication Display (SID), designed for use by organisations involved in road safety.

A portable device, SID tracks drivers from 100 metres away and beams up their speed on a roadside board. The board displays either a smiling or sad face, depending on the speed, to influence driver behaviour.

Covert traffic monitoring is possible with the use of the Radar Recorder, which uses a state of the art planar antenna to measure the speed of two lanes of traffic traveling in opposite directions.

Counters and Accessories offers a range of services and can provide roadside ‘furniture’ in which to house traffic recorders.

Mr Grove said: “One reason for our interest in Counters and Accessories was that it provides the complete package, from design and manufacture to supply, installation and maintenance.

“The real gain for the group though comes from the new marketing opportunities that will arise from the close fit of Counters and Accessories with our other businesses.

Hill & Smith Holdings PLC announced record profits for the period of six months ended 30 June 2005, with profit before tax of £8.5m, 36.6% ahead of the same period in the previous year. Annual results are due to be announced on 8 March 2006.

Issued by Freshwater UK PLC on behalf of Hill & Smith Holdings PLC