PARIS – Asteel continued its buying spree, today announcing the acquisition of MRP Electronics PLC, a UK-based EMS company. Financial and other terms were not announced.

MRP had reported 2007 sales of 12 million pounds, according to published accounts. It operates a 30,000 sq. ft. plant in Bedford, UK.

As previously reported by Circuits Assembly, Asteel's planned acquisition of Flash Electronics creates a $750 million EMS firm with 18 manufacturing sites and more than one million sq. ft. of factory space worldwide, plus a subsidiary in Romania.

Asteel is privately held and headquartered in Paris.

“This acquisition could not have come at a better time as some of our larger customers were considering taking their high volume work to the Far East,” MRP managing director Mike Perry said in published reports. “Now they can keep their MRP contacts – even for high volume production.”