Wednesday 23 March 2016

Acquisition of BritainsDNA by Source BioScience

I wrote in January about the changes at the Moffat Partnership (the parent company of BritainsDNA and ScotlandsDNA), the resignation of the directors, including Alistair Moffat and Jim Wilson, and their replacement with directors from the Nottingham-based sequencing company Source BioScience.

It's now been officially confirmed that Source BioScience have purchased BritainsDNA. See this story in the Nottingham PostThere are further details in the Source BioScience financial report for 2015 which is available on their website. Here are the three relevant paragraphs from the report:
"In December the Group acquired BritainsDNA, a provider of DNA-based ancestry and genealogy products to the consumer market. Source BioScience has been providing the laboratory testing and analysis for BritainsDNA for a number of years. The acquisition will deliver incremental revenue and increased operational efficiency for this business. The commercial activities will be migrated across to the Group’s ecommerce platform and e-Shop early in 2016."
"The Moffat Partnership Limited (‘BritainsDNA’) On 10 December 2015 Source BioScience completed the acquisition of the entire ordinary share capital of BritainsDNA for total consideration of £0.1 million. The principal activity of BritainsDNA is the provision of DNA Ancestry testing. The acquired business contributed negligible revenue and profit before tax to the Group for the period from 10 December 2015 to 31 December 2015. If the acquisition had occurred on 1 January 2015, Group revenue would have been £0.5 million higher and the profit before tax would have remained unchanged on a pro forma basis. These amounts have been calculated by adjusting the results of the subsidiary to reflect the additional amortisation that would have been charged assuming the fair value adjustments to intangible assets required by IFRS had been applied from 1 January 2015."
“During 2015 we completed the acquisitions of Select and BritainsDNA and invested in a number of infrastructure projects to improve operational efficiencies, enhance capacity to meet demand and address new markets for our expanded portfolio of Laboratory Services and Products. 
According to the Companies House website the Moffat Partnership has now changed its name to Source BioScience Scotland. At the moment all the various BritainsDNA websites seem to be operating as usual with no indication of the change of ownership or the changes in the company personnel.

BritainsDNA normally have a stand at Who Do You Think You Are? Live, the big UK family history show, but this year they are not included on the list of exhibitors.

It remains to be seen what plans Source BioScience have in store for the company. Does anyone have any further information?

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