The Sniffers is strengthening its ownership of shares and management team to preserve its constant expansion

October 2 nd 2006
In 1991, Rudy Van Baelen started looking for leaks in overhead and underground pipelines with his own specially trained sniffer dogs. 15 years later, the company can be considered as one of the leading pioneers in two major areas: leak detections in refineries, chemical and petrochemical companies and pipeline integrity inspections.
Within a few years, the amount of members of staff has increased from 2 to 38 and came the need, in order to preserve this constant expansion, to strengthen the company’s capital and to embed and extend the existing management.
Therefore, “The Sniffers International” is raised as a joint venture between the founder, the existing management team and a new management team member introduced by Creafund and Creafund II CVA.

Two major departments, supported by the service division
Detecting, listing and reporting leaks and/or losses in refineries, chemical and petrochemical companies, are some of the major tasks of our emission services department. Not only companies want to prevent, they also require a complete inventory of these leaks and/or losses in order to put up a “measure and control plan”. Reducing these losses is a major money-saver, but most of all, the environment benefits from it as well.

Our second department is responsible for the inspection and supervision of thousands of kilometres of pipeline by helicopter, four-wheel drive vehicle, on foot or with specially trained sniffer dogs. Apart from that, detecting illegal construction sites is a big challenge, as we alert to the dangers the workers are exposed to, and we supervise them as much as needed.

Both departments are supported by our service division, which analyses and processes the data into a specially developed software program. With this program, customers are allowed to control their conveniently arranged data and it allows them to report to their management and the authorities.

Today, The Sniffers is active in several European countries, from Sicily to Portugal and Lithuania, as well as in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In order to offer its services on a highly qualified level, we invest considerably in buying the latest equipment and in the training of personnel. The company is ISO and VCA certified, won the prize of “Young European Entrepreneur” in 1994 and first prize of ‘VOKA Kempen’ as innovative pioneer in 2005. In the near future, The Sniffers wants to extend its existing services (20) considerably, and a geographic expansion plan will be developed.

In order to manage and finance this expansion, Rudy Van Baelen decided to, on the one hand, embed the existing management team in the working capital, and on the other hand, to extend the team by means of a MBI transaction. Creafund, along with an external manager from the Creafund network is likely the most suitable partner for this. They will assist the management team on several aspects of the company to make this expansion plan succeed.

CREAFUND II Comm. VA, started in November 2001, is concentrated on providing financial growth to mature companies on several aspects (management, organisation, presence on the market, working capital, etc.) with an innovative product and/or by means of consolidation in combination with MBO/MBI structures in SME. The ownership of shares consists of about 60 industrial shareholders and the management of the fund.

For more information, please contact:
Creafund II CVA                                                      The Sniffers NV
Johan Heirbrandt                                                   Rudy Van Baelen
09/272.62.00                                                           014/31.88.88

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