Powercell Industrial Battery Engineers Ltd has bought Pb Batteries of Colchester, Essex, for an undisclosed value.

According to Powercell managing director Derek Anderson, Pb Batteries' strength in the rail and marine sectors will help the Rayne, Essex-based company to expand its market coverage.

"[Pb Batteries] is renowned for its traction batteries and has built a very successful reputation in the rail and marine sectors, where the Pb Batteries name will be retained."

Powercell supplies battery solutions mainly to the logistics, airport and standby power sector, having grown 25-30% annually for the past few years. Its clients range from small forklift companies to OEMs like Toyota, Jungheinrich, Linde and Doosan. DHL, American Airlines and Wolsley Group are also customers.

Anderson says Powercell aims to set itself apart in the market by providing a "complete battery service" and maintaining close customer relationships.

"It is about providing the solution from a range of products to suit the customer's best long-term needs. It's not about looking at the short-term gain. You have to earn the customer's trust.

"We have a bespoke service system, which has now been in place for over two years and this allows us to track all jobs which come into the system," he says.

Powercell moved to its new premises near Stansted Airport in Essex in 2007 and has recently expanded its sales and service team and increased its fleet of service vans.