Hays finds buyer for data storage business

Hays, the UK diversified recruitment, logistics and mail group, has announced that it has sold its document storage business, Hays Information Management Services (IMS) to Iron Mountain Europe, a joint venture between Mentmore PLC, the serviced office business, and Iron Mountain, a US based company. The sale of the division will generate revenues of £200m (€292m) for Hays, a figure far in excess of that which analysts had estimated.

Earlier in the year Hays announced that it had decided to focus on its more profitable recruitment activities and since then it has been attempting to find buyers for two of its divisions, including its logistics business. Although there is still no news on the latter, management will be relieved that it has managed to sell Hays IMS following clearance by the British government which agreed not to refer the acquisition to the Competition Commission. There had been speculation that the sale price of Hays IMS and Logistics would be pejoratively affected by uncertainty following a lengthy bidding process.

The buyer, Iron Mountain Europe, currently provides records and information management services in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Ireland, Germany, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria and the Netherlands. Its acquisition of Hays IMS will add locations in Belgium and Norway and strengthen its coverage in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany. Last year Iron Mountain acquired the document storage business of another UK logistics company, TDG, for £13.7m (€20m) after it also decided to re-structure its business.