Traffic technology company Swarco has bought UK road marking firm Hitex Group.

Swarco acquired 100% of the shares of family-owned Hitex Holdings, which was founded in 1972 in Ellesmere Port near Liverpool and has 130 staff.

Hitex’s companies turn over around €27 million and handle a mixture of road safety-related work: producing road marking materials and decorative surfacing products (Hitex Traffic Safety); contracting for road marking services (L&R Roadlines); and manufacturing road marking vehicles and machinery (Somerford Equipment).

It is Austria-based Swarco’s second buy in the last few weeks: in September it announced the acquisition of Dynniq Mobility.

Swarco speaker of the board and COO Michael Schuch says Hitex is a good fit because of the “strong know-how in their field, a good market penetration, a high reputation, and the background of a family ownership with a corporate culture similar to ours”.

“The Hitex companies will give us direct access to the road marking systems sector in the UK, helping us to gain a significant market share by introducing our five-decade long expertise in road safety materials,” Schuch added.

The UK firm was owned by four members of the Lloyd family. “We are happy to have found with Swarco a family-owned business with a strong know-how in the production of glass beads, road marking materials and the application of line markings”, says Geoff Lloyd.

Harald Mosböck, Swarco’s vice president for road marking systems in Europe and the APMEA regions, says owning Hitex will open up the market for products such as Swarco SolidPlus beads and two-component MMA systems.