The company has also reported a marked reversal of its financial fortunes, posting a 47% increase in turnover last year to 42.6m, while its bottom line also returned to the black, recording an aftertax profit of 5.7m compared to a 5.2m loss in 2004.

BMR chief executive Trish Smith said last week that the acquisition deal, completed in just two months, had been "unexpected" and came on the heels of the buyout of Compex Technologies by Encore Medical Corporation.

Compex previously held the US distribution rights for Slendertone's range of body toning products.

The deal will be formally signed off at the end of June, and it is understood that much of the purchase price related to outstanding Slendertone stock in the United States.

The American market has been fraught with difficulty for BMR since it entered it in 2002. Mounting debt of 11.5m almost saw the company collapse and, in 2003 Smith, was drafted in to perform emergency corporate surgery. She slashed the workforce and began targeting countries such as Japan.

Compex has also begun to see the US market finally deliver. In the last 10 months, Smith said, Compex sold $19m worth of Slendertone products, which were once promoted by the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson. The primary sales route for the toning products and accessories is the Home Shopping Network.

BMR expects to embark on a major marketing push in the US market, with new products that will also be sold into the Japanese market, Smith added. She said the company is now almost debtfree.

That will certainly be good news to ICC Venture Capital, a backer of BMR, which had stumped up an additional 13m in funding and 4.5m in loans as the company got into difficulties.

In 2001, it had sales of 66.8m between Slendertone products and sales of its German-based healthcare business Neurotech. That year BMR made pre-tax profit of 4.5m. In 2002, the company booked a loss of 17.5m. Sales dropped to 60m that year and fell to just under 35m the following year.