PRIVATE EQUITY firm 3i has acquired the Irish operations of the Uponor floor heating and plumbing systems business as part of a £100 million (€126.1 million) deal that will see it take control of Uponor’s British unit.

Finnish plastic pipe group Uponor Oyj said it will realise a gain of some €50 million on the transaction. The assets changing hands include Uponor’s Northern Ireland subsidiary Radius Plastics, which employs about 100 staff at a factory in Banbridge, Co Down, which manufactures municipal pipe infrastructure. An infrastructure business in Cork and Dublin-based Uponor Housing Solutions are also included in the deal.

Uponor sold an infrastructure factory in Cork to a local building company last December. The closing of that sale was postponed yesterday until the first quarter of next year from the final quarter of 2008. Uponor previously said it expected to realise a sales gain of €18 million before tax on that sale.

“We have over the years invested extensively in the development of the gas and water pipe business in the UK and Ireland, and reached a market-leading position in our segments in the municipal infrastructure sector,” said Jyri Luomakoski, deputy chief at Uponor with responsibility for its Irish and British units.

“We did not regard it as a rational choice to keep the business in Uponor, because its synergies with the Nordic infrastructure business or the local housing solutions business were few. The divested business mostly concentrates on serving gas and water utility customers.”