Two former directors of Corporate Services Group have made the first in a series of planned purchases.

Diana Cornish, the former chairman and chief executive of Blue Arrow, and her business partner David Lake, CSG’s former finance director, have bought driver and industrial agency SMS Ltd for a reported sum of £8.2m. SMS is one of the largest independent driver agencies in the UK, with a turnover of £24m and 30 branches nationwide.

The purchase was completed in conjunction with David Walker and Kevin Chatfield, the operational directors of SMS. The vendors were advised by John Bissell of Linsey Bissell Associates.

Cornish told Recruiter that she and Lake chose SMS because it so closely matched their acquisition criteria: “It’s well managed and in a developing niche market. I have run generalist businesses in the past which have entered niche markets but this is different.”

Cornish plans to build a group of companies that will “embrace modern technology, including web-enabled systems, as well as using traditional entrepreneurialism to continue to grow the group both organically and through acquisition”.