Dash for depots
At the outset of the 1990s, I’d already made, along with two partners, my first foray into publishing for the hire industry. In October 1987, we’d launched PHE Plant Hire Executive and enjoyed ourselves immensely as the industry boomed at the end of the 1980s.
In April 1990, flushed with our success, we launched Tool Hire Executive, which we claimed would be a ‘similar quality publication to serve the tool and equipment hire market.’ We actually did the unthinkable and set up a rival magazine to Hire News! The established market leader need not have worried, however, as, within a few months, the recession was upon us. Faced with this difficult
publishing period, we struggled on through 1991, before joining forces with Hire Association Europe in June 1992, when Tool Hire Executive became HAE’s official magazine.
Robert Aplin flicks through the 1990s issues of EHN, concluding that the decade was dominated by the growth strategies of the leading hirers.
In his January 1993 Viewpoint, HAE Executive
Director Mike Hanrahan - another industry legend - reflected, ‘the past year has seen many fine businesses go to the wall as the recession bit deeper and deeper. At the time of writing, the signs are present that some fragile ‘green shoots’ of recovery are beginning to sprout.’
On the
eve of Hirex 93, these ‘green shoots’ started to take root as we jointly bought Hire News from EMAP
Response Publishing for the vastly
exorbitant sum of
£20,000 and merged Hire News and Tool Hire Executive to form the current title, Executive Hire News.
43
EXECUTIVE HIRE NEWS IN THE 1990s
Its significance was unknown to us at the time, but one of the news items in that March/April launch issue was Speedy’s purchase of Hire-A-Tool’s nine branches to bring its network to 30 outlets. The item also featured a smiling Speedy MD John Brown. In the following issue, EHN talked with HSS MD Lister Fielding - a far more familiar face in EHN throughout the decade - about the company’s recent £52m acquisition by Davis Service Group.
Our interview concluded, ‘now with a group whose activities include other hire and
rental-based companies, all that’s changed is that HSS’ expansion may be quicker than it previously was.’ Throughout the 1990s, HSS consistently opened 20 or more new branches each year, and thus maintained its market leadership position.
This dash for depots continued as, in September 93, Hewden bought Hireplant for £10.8m, taking its network to 30 outlets and Speedy made a direct appeal in a full page advert to purchase depots from other hirers, in singles or multiples of a minimum of four locations. EHN’s first meaningful interview with Speedy’s John
Brown was published in January 1994 and, in it, he set the scene on the company’s philosophy for the rest of the decade. ‘In a recession, it is cheaper to purchase depots than open your own. A greenfield development will cost you £50,000 before you break even. The quickest breakeven we achieved was 19 weeks, now it is likely to be a year. If we can buy four depots for less than £50,000 per depot, it makes more sense to buy.’
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