TOOL HIRE TOP TEN 2012 continued
BRANDON HIRE LTD Managing Director
Head Office
Telephone Number Website
Hire activities
Geographical coverage Status
COMMENT
Tim Smith describes 2011 as “a year of change” as the company continued to build on the foundations laid after Wolseley sold the hirer to private equity house Rutland Partners (with a stake also held by the senior Brandon management team) in mid 2010. He points out that in the four year period when Brandon was owned by Wolseley, it transformed Brandon into a significantly bigger operation and the hirer continued to benefit from the increased professionalism and the more sophisticated systems and processes which Wolseley put in place.
Nevertheless, the challenges for Brandon when it left Wolseley were significant as it had to establish its own systems for such essentials as fleet management and marketing. In short, it had to make the move from being a semi-detached part of Wolseley to being a standalone hirer. Tim Smith believes that, with this exercise now over, 2012 should have fewer distractions for the UK’s No.3 hirer.
Shortly after its change of ownership, Brandon was hit by the demise of Rok, its largest customer, but, over the past year, it has more than replaced those revenues with a wide spread of business. Tim Smith maintains that Brandon is continuing to perform well in its traditional heartland of south west and southern England, where it already had a significant market share. He also states that Brandon is out-performing the market in areas further from its Bristol base, such as Birmingham and Salford, where it has opened larger outlets in recent years.
Unlike its two larger rivals, Brandon is not especially enthusiastic about long term supply agreements with national contractors; it sees its niche of the market as remaining largely with SMEs. Tim Smith believes Brandon is going into 2012 in good shape and his only concern is the economic backdrop. He feels, however, that Brandon is well positioned, describing the company as ‘national’ and big enough to take advantage of any improving trends but still flexible enough to cope with any downturn.
Brandon ended 2011 by announcing its first acquisition since the buy-out. The company has purchased Phoenix Surveying Equipment in a deal worth £4m. Like Brandon, Phoenix is based in Bristol. Phoenix also operates branches in Cardiff, Exeter, Yate, Reading and Bournemouth, very much within Brandon’s own ‘heartland.’ Phoenix hires, sells and repairs surveying equipment and currently generates
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Tim Smith
Feeder Road, Bristol BS2 0TQ 01179 971 9119
www.brandonhire.co.uk
Tool Hire, lifting equipment, pipe hire, toilet hire, training National
Private company with private equity funding
annual revenues of about £5m. This acquisition gives Brandon the opportunity to develop an additional, but clearly complementary sphere of business. Tim Smith indicates that the purchase has been made out of Brandon’s own resources without any recourse to increased banking facilities.
JEWSON HIRE Director of Tool Hire
Head Office
Telephone Number Website
Hire activities
Geographical coverage Status
Richard Pedersen
Merchant House, Binley Business Park, Coventry CV2 2TT 02476 438400
www.jewson.co.uk Tools and equipment National
Division of Jewson, a subsidiary of Groupe Saint-Gobain, a public company listed on the Paris Bourse
COMMENT
Jewson, one of the UK’s largest builders’ merchants, is owned by Saint-Gobain, Europe’s largest building materials distributor with a network of 4,200 sales outlets and annual sales of 19.7 billion euro. In July 2011, Saint-Gobain announced the further expansion of its merchanting operations in the UK with the acquisition of Wolseley’s Builder Center, which had 148 stores, compared with Jewson’s 500+ branch network. The purchase was completed in November.
TP HIRE
Chief Executive (Travis Perkins) Geoff Cooper Group Hire Director Head Office
Richard Dey
Telephone Number Website
Hire activities
Geographical coverage Status
COMMENT
Richard Dey reports that 2011 was “a good year” for TP Hire; and, whilst the hirer does not expect to see the same level of growth in 2012, it is still confident of gaining greater penetration into its Group customer base. In addition, a number of areas for new locations in 2012 have been identified.
In 2012 TP Hire will open 12 specialist hire outlets within BSS Industrial (acquired by Travis Perkins in 2010), which, as with the Travis Perkins and Keyline Hire businesses, will be focused on offering a quality service to existing customers and enhancing the BSS Industrial offer. TP Hire is continuing its eye-catching pink
Lodge Way House, Harlestone Road, Northampton NN5 7UG 01604 752424
www.travisperkins.co.uk/hire Small plant and tools National
Division of Travis Perkins plc
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