In October that year, the industry really had to sit up and take notice of Speedy when it acquired the 41 branches of Kendrick Hire - the UK’s largest privately owned tool hirer. In the process, Speedy doubled in size to 80 outlets. In his farewell Viewpoint in February 1995, Mike Hanrahan commented, ‘the trend is towards the big company with more depots; there has been a number of major buyouts and takeovers. But I have no doubt that there will also be a place for the single operator, the entrepreneur, by whom our industry was founded.’ The purchases simply kept coming. In the early months of 1995 alone, Brandon bought Bildapowa and Crown Hire taking its depot network to 29, in the process doubling in size since May 1994.
HEWDEN ON THE ACQUISITION TRAIL
In September, John Brown was eagerly looking for more acquisitions to get to his short term target of 100 outlets before the end of 1995. At the end of the year, Hewden also acquired 14 outlets from Tim Lunt’s W H Price for £5m and we commented, ‘this acquisition is the start of planned development within Hewden Stuart’s Tool Hire activities.’
The HSS catalogue launch was always one of the early year highlights and, in January 1996, Lister Fielding, the 1995 Hire Person of the Year, revealed plans for a further 12 more depots in 1976 as part of its ‘organic and steady growth.’ The actual number turned out to be 21, with a further eight Lift & Shift.
The deals just kept on coming. In late 1996, Handi
Hire bought Hi-Gear Services, Sidcup Plant expanded its network to six outlets, Vibroplant acquired Cannon Tool Hire, and Speedy picked up Vine Plant, Derby-based Tidy
Group and Swanley Tool Hire. In early 1997, Vibroplant bought Instant Tool Hire,
Handi Hire grew to 18 East Midlands depots, Hewden increased its commitment to tool hire, having opened a further 12 outlets in the previous 12 months. In the middle of the year, Vibroplant got in on the act again by buying Torrent for £9.5m and, by September, Sam Hire, Southern Ireland’s largest tool and equipment hirer,
with nine outlets,
was sold to builders’ merchant Heiton Holdings. One
month later, Ashtead bought Sheriff’s 61 depots for £39.4m, and we also reported that Torex had expanded from 16 outlets at the start of 1996 to 24 by October 1997. Another new player showed its hand for the first time in November 1997 when Jewson announced that up to 60 new Hire Points would be created within the next two years. The following month, it bought Torex for £10m cash. These two moves gave Hire Point, only established in 1993, a combined total of over 200 tool hire outlets and catapulted the company into the Tool Hire Top Ten, and ‘showed how builders’ merchants are making significant inroads into the world of hire.’
SPEEDY’S PLAN CHANGES
By September 1998, whilst Vibroplant had acquired 727 Plant and Hewden’s spree had added 31 outlets to give it a total of 210 depots, compared with 161 a year before, Speedy’s plan had changed: ‘Our growth strategy is now on expanding through greenfield site openings, but we will still consider acquisitions. We are not prepared to pay the premium prices that some of our well-known competitors have paid in recent months.’ Utterly consistent HSS continued its policy of organic
growth and maintained its target of opening 30 new outlets a year, reaching a total of 333 by April 1999. At that point, we also noted, ‘like its leading rivals HSS and Speedy, Hewden is having to undertake an increasing number of greenfield sites in order to maintain its expansion rate as acquisition opportunities are limited.’ Finally of note, in the summer of 1999, Scotland- based GAP Group, not sighted in EHN until this point, opened three Midlands depots as part of its commitment to open 20 further outlets, mainly in the Midlands and the south of England. So there you have my personal recollections of the 1990s. The striking irony is that, as EHN left the grasp of a national publishing group at the start of the decade - thus regaining its independence - for the rest of the 1990s, we spent most of our time reporting on how many independent hirers were heading in the opposite direction. o
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