SAFETY and industrial products distributor Heatley Sales has completed a merger with ydney-based Australian Safety Specialists.Geoff Heatley, chairman of Heatley Sales’ holding company, Heatley Holdings, said the new entity would be 50 per cent owned by AMP Private Equity, with ASS and his company’s management keeping minority holdings.Mr Heatley said negotiations started on the merger about a month ago, and that West Perth-based advisory firm Mergers and Acquisitions, which was involved in the earlier AMP deal, had not taken part in talks with ASS. he merger comes after the group secured a capital injection of $11 million in April from Australian private equity player AMP Capital Investors, which became a 70 per cent equity partner.The merged entity will include Heatley’s distribution network in Western Australia and South Australia and ASS’s branches in New South Wales and Queensland. It will also result in a combined group turnover of nearly $100 million, according to Heatley Sales.Based in Canning Vale, Heatley Sales was established in 1987. The group said it was currently investigating business opportunities to take turnover to over $150 million.