The acquisitive Blackpool-based group, backed by investor Stellex Capital Management, said the deals would strengthen its ability to control more of the construction supply chain from materials production through to on-site delivery and recycling.
Carlisle-based DSD Construction employs around 140 staff and last posted turnover of about £45m with pre-tax profit of £4.4m.
Founded in 1993 by the Nugent family, DSD specialises in highways surfacing, cold milling and associated civils infrastructure work across highways, rail, nuclear, aviation, water and defence sectors.
Fox said DSD’s surfacing operations would help drive demand for aggregates and asphalt across the wider group while expanding its reclaimed asphalt recycling capability.
The contractor’s cold milling operations will allow more reclaimed asphalt planings to be recovered directly from projects before being recycled back into new asphalt through Fox-owned businesses including J. Fisher & Sons and NMS Civil Engineering.
Alongside the DSD takeover, Fox has also bought Lancashire-based Moore Readymix, a family-run ready-mix concrete supplier operating batching plants at Walton Summit in Preston and St Annes in Blackpool.
Founded by Roy Moore more than 20 years ago, Moore Readymix supplies all grades of ready-mixed concrete alongside its specialist MooreMinimix service for smaller pours across construction, agriculture and domestic markets.
The group described the combined acquisitions as another step towards building a “closed-loop circular model” designed to reduce virgin aggregate use, lower embedded carbon and improve operational efficiency.
The DSD acquisition is Fox Group’s fourth since Stellex invested in the business and is understood to be its biggest deal so far.
DSD will continue to trade under its existing brand with founder Shaun Nugent remaining as chief executive alongside managing director Martin Tweddle.
Paul Fox, chief executive of Fox Group, said the latest acquisitions marked another major step in expanding the group’s integrated infrastructure platform across materials, distribution and construction services.
