West Lothian industrial safety specialist Empteezy has been taken over in a management buyout backed by Chiltern Capital

West Lothian-based Empteezy was founded more than 30 years ago by Bruce Wishart and today has 250 employees operating across Europe. It specialises in designing and manufacturing safety products and solutions in areas from spill control to hazardous waste storage.

The MBO has been led by Empteezy chief executive David Byrne and chief financial officer Jon Hazlewood, with Warwick Ley joining as chair.

Chiltern Capital will support the team with plans to broaden Empteezy’s product and service offering and make further funding available for targeted M&A work.

For the year ended October 31, 2021 the company posted a pre-tax profit of £3.5m, against £2.1m in the previous year. That was achieved on turnover of £44.6m compared to £37.4m in the year before. The terms of the MBO have not been disclosed.

Bruce Wishart said: "Passing the company on to the existing management was a natural decision, the hard part was finding the right partner to assist with this.