Barloworld has reached an agreement to buy CMS Lift trucks, Northern Ireland's exclusive Hyster dealer, for GBP5 million (USD9.73 million).

CMS, a private company, has operated in Northern Ireland for more than 20 years, and also sells Combilift and Baumann materials handling machines.

Barloworld chief executive Tony Phillips said the acquisition expanded the company's partnership with Hyster, which it represents in eight states in the USA, the UK, Belgium, Holland and southern Africa.

CMS, which has annual revenue of GBP5 million (USD9.73 million) and net assets of GBP4.2 million (USD8.17 million), would become part of Barloworld's international materials handling business.

"This deal, which complements our other handling operations in Europe, is another example of our "pacman" strategy of incrementally adding more territory in the things we do well," Phillips said.

Barloworld European managing director Keith Hay said the acquisition would make an important contribution to growing the company's European presence.

"Both Barloworld and Hyster see this as an enormously positive step and view it as an exciting opportunity to continue the success and growth of our partnership," he said.