The man who sold Apollo Heating to outsourcing contractor Spice for £10m has bought the business back for free.
Spice Plc, the provider of outsourced utility support services, said it had offloaded its loss-making gas division, which included the Apollo business and sold it to Shaun Maclean's new plumbing and heating firm Booth Mechanical Services.

Shaun Maclean has bought back Apollo Heating for 'nil consideration', four years after he sold it to Spice.

Spice said its boiler maintenance division was sold for nothing after making a loss of £6.4m last year from turnover of £34.3m.

A Spice company statement described it as the: 'Elimination of a business which has contributed significant operating losses and which absorbed a very significant amount of management time and resources'. It called it 'A clean exit through the sale of the share capital of the gas business for £ nil consideration with no completion adjustments'.

Maclean founded Manchester-based Apollo Heating in 1996. After running the boiler and heating maintenance business for 10 years, Maclean sold it to Spice and, as part of the deal, joined Spice as group managing director until he left in spring 2009.

Spice chief executive Martin Towers said: 'During the past two years, the gas business has been a material distraction for the group and a drain on resources. Today's announcement draws a line under these issues'.

To read about Shaun Maclean's acquisition of Booth Mechanical Services click here