The acquisition of Elster boosted the revenues of Melrose Industries for the first half of this year. The international engineering group purchased Elster, a firm that provides measurement solutions for electricity, water and gas customers, in August last year. The first-half revenues reached GBP 1.02 billion or USD 1.58 billion, representing a 119% increase. Revenues from Elster totaled GBP 569.2 million.

Melrose Chairman Christopher Miller told Reuters, "Elster is fast proving to be another great acquisition with profit already up by over a third." Aside from revenues, pretax profit for Melrose increased as well. From GBP 65.9 million last year, headline pretax profits rose to GBP 139.4 million in the first half of this year.

When investing in firms, Melrose follows the strategy used by private equity companies.The company first would have to improve the performance of a potential asset before selling them. Melrose is also in the process of selling its US lifting unit. Melrose bought Crosby in 2008 and is now valued at USD 1 billion.