Blueleaf Care acquires Nexon to become Stronger Together

Blueleaf Care, the nationwide business that helps care homes deliver better outcomes, has acquired Nexon, the national distributor of cleaning, hygiene and healthcare products to form a single group.

The acquisition is part of a stated strategy to become the market leader and grow the organisation to £100m turnover within the next five years.

Blueleaf benefits from the merger by gaining access to Nexon’s quality client base, niche brands, and further extending its geographic ‘reach’ in the north. Acquiring Nexon also gives it the opportunity to extend its offering beyond the ‘traditional’ care sector into new areas where Nexon is already established.

Nexon benefits significantly from the depth and breadth of Blueleaf’s product range, enabling it to offer its clients a single source for all their purchasing needs, including furniture, equipment and medical consumables, for example, which they currently have to source elsewhere or can’t currently provide. Both sets of customers will also benefit from the greater buying power that a larger organisation can bring, to offer lower prices in many instances than would previously have been possible.

Nick Frogbrook, Group Chief Executive, says that merging the two businesses will make them stronger together: “The market is becoming increasingly competitive,” he says, “and standing still is effectively going backwards. There is a ‘first mover’ advantage in acting now; prices are continually being squeezed while costs are rising, and a larger group will have greater buying power to benefit our customers while being able to deliver greater efficiencies through technology, infrastructure and people.”

Don Green, Director of Business Development at Nexon, who will be joining the new leadership team, says the decision will create an excellent opportunity for Nexon and its customers: “We have effectively reached our ceiling in terms of growth and what we can offer our customers,” he explains.

“By merging with Blueleaf, we will continue to partner with our clients in delivering the specialist cleaning and laundry products for which we are well known. We are looking forward to being able to offer a much broader range of consumables and equipment at competitive prices and giving our clients an even greater level of support and service by joining with the team at Blueleaf.”

Blueleaf has spent the last 12 months focusing on improving its own systems, operations infrastructure and teams and building a firm foundation on which to grow.

Initially both businesses will continue to trade as they are and will start to come together in 2024 as Nexon’s clients are moved across to Blueleaf’s more scaleable systems and platforms.

“Migrating Nexon’s clients onto the Blueleaf platform should be a simple case of ‘lift and drop’,” Nick continues. “Some training may be required in advance to head off any potential difficulties and realise the true benefits of the transition. Ahead of any transition, it will also be necessary to ensure operationally that the warehouse and stock are aligned and continue without any impact on clients even if the deliveries in the future may come from a different warehouse location.”

Ronnie Green (Procurement and IT) and Stephen Green (Ops Director) at Nexon will be part of a dedicated team assigned to the integration to ensure that any existing customer KPIs are met and contractual terms honoured.

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