PROFILE SKIPTON HIRE CENTRES


Skipton’s next stage


Following a management buy-out two years ago, Skipton Hire Centres is continuing to develop its operation. Alan Guthrie visited its North Yorkshire headquarters.


SHC’s Neil Bravery (left) and Richard Palmer are upbeat about future prospects.


Skipton Hire Centres (SHC) has four depots in the Yorkshire county towns of Ilkley, Ripon and Northallerton as well as the one the company is named after which is its headquarters. Established in 1981 by Claire Gains, it prides itself on supplying local people and businesses throughout a chiefly rural area with a diverse range of tools and equipment. Indeed, a sign outside each of its locations proudly declares that it provides ‘Everything for home, site and industry’.


In December 2016 the business was the subject of a management buy-out (MBO), with the day-to-day running of the company in the hands of MD Neil Bravery and Financial Director Richard Palmer. Richard originally joined SHC in 2014, while Neil has worked for the company on three different occasions in a hire career spanning 28 years.


Briefly, Neil’s first job in hire was with Amtool Hire, a Kent-based independent which had three depots which were acquired by Brandon Hire in 1992 as it expanded beyond its south-west of England heartland. He became Area Manager for its south-east region, but in 2003 he re-located to North Yorkshire. “It was then that I made contact with wife-and- husband team Claire and Nick Gains at SHC,” Neil told EHN. “I had been impressed by the business when I read about it in EHN’s July 2002 issue, after it won in the Hire Company of the Year (Regional Multi Outlets) and


Excellence in Customer Care categories in the HAE’s Hire Awards of Excellence. It looked impressive and well-run. We had a conversation and I joined its sales operation at Skipton.”


Ambitions


However, two years later, Neil still harboured ambitions to build a career on a regional or national basis. He joined GAP as a National Accounts Manager for a year, but bumped into Nick Gains at the SED exhibition in 2005 who said there was an opportunity back at SHC. Claire had just started an event hire business called Blue Sky Events that required more of her attention, and Neil became Sales Director of SHC that year.


In 2006, Brandon was acquired by the Wolseley builder’s merchant group and Neil could not resist the pull of the opportunity to team up with former colleagues as Regional Manager for the north west of England in 2007 - just before the recession and a wave of rationalisation, culminating in Brandon’s acquisition by private equity investor Rutland Partners in 2010.


“In 2011, Claire contacted me and said Blue Sky Events was establishing itself as a dedicated operation with its own premises, meaning that a new MD was needed for SHC,” said Neil. “I knew the business well and, as SHC was her ‘baby’, she needed a safe, trusted pair of hands to run it, so I jumped at the opportunity.”


The MBO came about when Claire and Nick Gains wanted to step back from the business, after 35 years of successful trading. Neil Bravery and Richard Palmer recognised the opportunity to own an established, successful business and to shape its future.


The hire shops are being refurbished to give a bright, welcoming atmosphere. 33


MOVING FORWARD WITH CONFIDENCE


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