British group Wescott Industrial Services has bought a 50 per cent share in Total Access Solutions (TAS), one of the leading UAE-based rope access building maintenance and asset integrity management contractors, as part of its regional expansion strategy.
 
With this move, the Dubai-based group has now been renamed as Wescott Technical Services.

The purchase will enable Wescott to immediately access the lucrative Middle East and North Africa (Mena) market for facility management, fabric maintenance, oil and gas, petrochemical and marine sectors.

Wescott’s business development director Mick Flaherty said: "This acquisition is a perfect match for ourselves as it enables us to trade immediately out of the Middle East without the delays and set-up costs most businesses experience – normally a painful six months process at least."

TAS, he stated, has a history of nine years in the UAE and has almost 100 fully trained Irata Rope Access Technicians ready and available to support contracts.

"Simultaneously, we are finalising a joint venture with one of India’s largest NDT companies to add more services to our offering. More importantly, this will add a geographical footprint opportunity throughout the Mena and Far East regions that will increase our exposure as experts in our industry," explained Flaherty.
 
"Our contribution is a structured business development campaign, operational excellence in project management and quality accreditations which allows us to enter all industry markets and gives us more scope for fabric maintenance and asset integrity management contracts, thereby adding value from all angles," said the top official.

"The new company will now be able enter markets with an aggressive growth strategy far beyond its expectations," he added.

A key player in the region, TAS have an enviable track record with several high profile contracts including a five year contract recognised as the single largest rope access-cleaning contract in the UAE requiring 70 men working six nights 52 weeks of the year.

Similarly the Ferrari World project required 160 men during the construction clean which included the entire outside roof (at the time this was the largest roof of any single building in the world), façade including the six iconic triforms of the roof structure.

TAS also carried out external construction clean of the IMG Theme Park, the largest indoor Theme Park in the world, said Flaherty.

"From the UAE, Wescott will now be targeting asset integrity management sectors in the Mena countries of UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman besides India, Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Uganda but particularly Dubai itself as the country gears up for Expo 2020," he added.-TradeArabia News Service