Italian stone machinery manufacturer GMM has taken a controlling share in Bavelloni SpA, creating a group with a turnover exceeding €100million. 

The deal giving GMM 52% of Bavelloni’s shares was concluded on Monday (31 January).

GMM, with sales worldwide and represented in the UK by Roccia Machinery, is based in Gravellona Toce in Italy. It is a leading manufacturer of machinery for stone cutting, milling, and polishing.

Founded in 1993 by three engineers, GMM began by designing and manufacturing bridge saws for the stone industry. It has developed into a world leader in the production of traditional and numerically controlled sawing and milling cutters. These days it also makes edge polishers as a result of the acquisition of Cemar in 2009, and waterjet cutters as a result of the acquisition of the Australian Techni Waterjet in 2018.

In the past five years GMM’s turnover has grown from €36million to €70million, 85% of which is generated outside Italy.

For Bavelloni SpA, based in Lentate sul Seveso, also in Italy, joining with GMM represents an opportunity to continue a strategic development plan started in 2015, which has resulted in the company increasing turnover by 75%, expanding its sales network through three of its own subsidiaries abroad and integrating a tools business into its product range.

GMM and Bavelloni Spa will together employ 400 people and operate six production plants and eight direct subsidiaries. The two companies will integrate their respective technologies into an annual production of over 800 machines for three main business sectors: Stone with the GMM brand; Glass with the Bavelloni brand; Fabrication Materials under the Techni Waterjet brand.

For Bavelloni, the partnership with GMM opens a new opportunity to develop the stone side of its business in the machinery and tooling sectors. Bavelloni has concentrated on the glass industry and its machines are distributed in the UK by Glass Machinery Solutions. Nevertheless, the stone versions of its robust, fast CNC workcentres are favoured by some in the stone industry. Its NRG series are its stone sector flagships, available in three, four and five axes versions.

The two companies say their machinery is fully complementary without overlap, which will allow them to continue to develop their full product ranges, although the similarities between the machines will allow for rationalization of components and production processes.

The Bavelloni SpA Board of Directors – Federico Bassi, Roberto Califano and Sergio Valsecchi – retain 48% of Bavelloni shares and will continue to manage the company.

GMM was assisted by Lincoln International as advisor of the transaction, by the law firm Ughi e Nunziante for the contractual aspects, by KPMG for the accounting due diligence and by Russo De Rosa & Associati for the fiscal and legal aspects. Bavelloni shareholders were assisted by Studio Advant Nctm.

Stone Federation Great Britain is making 'The Case for Stone' in the first of a series of webinars from 3.30pm on 17 February. 

The Case for Stone events will be part of the Federation’s efforts to raise awareness of natural stone and its credentials for sustainability.

This ongoing online conversation will explore how natural stone can help deliver a more sustainably built environment.

This first conversation will be hosted by Ulrike Knox, founder of Knox McConnell Architects, one of the judges of Stone Federation’s Natural Stone Awards.

Speakers are Amin Taha, of Groupwork, and Steve Webb, of Webb Yates Engineers, who worked together on 15 Clerkenwell Close, where they demonstrated that using natural stone can reduce a building’s whole life carbon impact. The project was shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize last year.

They will be joined by Zac Tudor of Arup, who, in a previous role as principal landscape architect for Sheffield City Council, delivered a number of natural stone projects in the city. He is a key proponent of the use of stone for sustainable city landscapes.

The webinars are free, but you have to register - go to bit.ly/CFStone22.

Grade I listed Exeter Cathedral is planning on recreating a cloister gallery demolished nearly 400 years ago and is looking for a heritage company to carry out the work. 

It was given planning permission for the project just before Christmas and is now inviting submissions before 17 February from heritage masonry companies that would like to be considered for the project to create a new covered cloister that will be used as a gallery and event space.

The aim is to shortlist no more than six companies that will be invited to tender. If you are interested, email Exeter Cathedral Architect Camilla Finlay, a Partner of Acanthus Clews, in Banbury, Oxfordshire, on camilla@acanthusclews.co.uk.

Work, largely funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, is due to start in July and is expected to take about a year, with the £2.3million project also including a toilet extension to a 19^th century library building designed by John Loughborough Pearson, a Victorian Gothic revivalist.

The aim is to make it easier to use the Cloister to the south of the Cathedral that contains the Chapter House, Chapel of the Holy Ghost, the Pearson Library, and the WCs.

Using this area is currently awkward because the 13^th century gallery that originally connected the Chapter House, which has a particularly attractive ceiling, to the Norman Cathedral through the 12^th century Bishop Brewer doorway was demolished during the Civil War in the 17^th century.

The proposal is to re-establish the link and extend it to the Pearson Library.

The original medieval stonework is Salcombe sandstone from East Devon quarries that have long since closed. Acanthus Clews staff are currently looking for stones they can use to match the original.