Cambridge company buys major UK parking business

Media Release
For Immediate use
16 December 2011

Cambridge company buys major UK parking business in multi million pound deal

Cambridge based Car Parking Technologies (CPT), which listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in February this year, has signed an agreement to acquire UK parking company Town & City Parking (UK) Limited in a deal that could be worth nearly ten million pounds.

The final purchase price will depend on the profitability of the British company in its first year under new ownership.

Town & City is the UK’s largest retail parking company and manages more than 1100 car parks with in excess of half a million parking bays.

The acquisition of Town & City will allow CPT to accelerate the deployment of its world leading sensor technology into the UK. Owning the parking management company will offer massive growth opportunities for CPT.

The deal is subject to CPT shareholder approval at a special Annual General Meeting on 22 December.

CPT is already a major success story with its parking sensor technology widely used in Australia, South Africa, the United Kingdom as well as New Zealand Other international sales are pending.

Car Parking Technologies Managing Director, Paul Collins, says the purchase of Town & City will be a very significant milestone for CPT.

“In one swoop we will be able to massively increase the use of our products and we believe we will also make the operation of Town & City much more efficient and profitable.”

“We are already the international market leader in the development and operation of car parking sensor technology, however this deal will give us the critical mass to take us to a completely different level,” says Mr Collins.

CPT will take over its new business on 1 January 2012.

CPT Chairman Chris Morris says this is an exciting opportunity for Car Parking Technologies.

“This transforms our company from a pure technology provider to a company that can offer an end to end solution for managing on and off street parking using its own technology. Management of car parks traditionally has been a labour intensive business but by using smart technology, costs can be reduced considerably,” says Mr Morris.

CPT has been developing a range of new sensor products over the past few years. In the past week it has unveiled new technology for the management of disabled parking bays.

Instead of carrying a disability-parking permit, the technology allows disabled drivers to have an electronic tag in their car that can be read by sensors placed in the parking bays. The sensors wirelessly relay information that identifies and verifies a genuine disabled driver and also alerts enforcement staff when a car has been illegally parked.

CPT is about to begin discussions with disability groups, shopping malls and local authorities in New Zealand regarding the introduction and monitoring of its new system.

The disability parking management system is a follow on from CPT’s baseline sensor technology, developed for monitoring parking buildings and on-street parking. The company has its technology in more than 100,000 managed parking bays throughout the world.

CPT has grown to be a multi-million dollar company and has ten times more managed bays than its next largest international competitor.

ENDS

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