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Boalloy has been bought by JMF, the Northern Ireland-based steel fabrication firm and trailer manufacturer. The deal is between a firm with 400 employees and a strong brand in Boalloy Tautliner and a 200-employee business with much greater financial strength. The purchase price has not been disclosed. In July 2005, Boalloy's three directors - who are staying with the business - led a secondary buy-out which left the firm financially exposed in what has been a tough year in trailers. Boalloy has  also been seeking a lower-cost chassis for years.

Volume chassis for box trailers and curtainsiders will be built at JMF's newly-expanded Concept Trailers site at Ballymoney and bodied at Boalloy in Congleton. The Boalloy Fastrack business for rigid bodies also gets secure continuity and development, Boalloy managing director Jim Gibbs says. James Murray, chairman and founder of JMF says he intends to keep the M&G Trailers facility at Lye (West Midlands) "with its strong brand reputation and flexibility to build highly customised semi-trailers, step frames, drawbars, fixed and sliding skeletals, PSKs, coilers and bulkers".

Murray says that the enlarged group will have a capacity of 4,000 trailer chassis a year of that, 2,500 are from Concept Trailers, which is currently building 25 a week but capacity is being doubled to 50 a week. Its new facility will have the UK's first computerised shot-blasting and powder coating system.