09.08.2023
Nationwide moves into telehandlers
UK access rental company Nationwide Platforms - the UK division of France’s Loxam - has made a “significant strategic investment” in fixed frame telehandlers starting in northwest England. The company has selected four different models from the Manitou range to kick off the new venture, all of which will be based at its Warrington branch.
The order includes:
- The 6 metre/2,500kg MT625
- The 10 metre/3,300kg MT1033
- The 13.5 metre/4,000kg MT1440
- The 17.5 metre/4,000kg MT1840
The company has also purchased extra attachments for each model including buckets, lifting hooks and extension forks. It is targeting customers in construction, tree care, agriculture and work at height.
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Two of the new telehandlers
This serious move into telehandler rental is a new venture for Nationwide which has tended to focus its efforts on the provision of all types of aerial work platforms until now, although its parent company Loxam is a general rental company in most other countries.
Procurement director Glyn Brearley said: “This is the start of an investment journey we are taking into telehandlers. We've invested in an even split of the four new models and for now they have been delivered to Warrington to be maintained and hired out from there. We have more orders planned over the course of the next few years and with this increasing investment we aim to be able to distribute the machines across our depot network to support our customer requirements nationwide."
Established in the late 1980s as Nationwide Access by David Wraith and the late Gary Smith, the company was acquired in 1992 through a management buy-in by David Price and funded by Cinven, to form the Lavendon Group which later floated on the UK stock market. Since then it has expand at a steady pace through acquisitions and organic growth, to become the largest specialist access rental company in Europe. The acquisition of The Platform Company in the UK and its subsequent merger with Nationwide Access provided the Nationwide Platforms name, making it the UK’s largest powered access rental company by a wide margin. The
Lavendon group was acquired by France’s Loxam in 2017, and currently has more than 1,000 employees in the UK across 31 locations.
They abound
Nationwide Platforms ran the JCBs from The Platform Company for a while, then I'm pretty sure they passed them on to UK Forks. UK Platforms came with a fleet of Haulotte telehandlers, but plant and access tend not to mix, so they I heard they sold them back to the manufacturers - may be totally incorrect. Now they're buying Manitous? A marque they only ever inherited, and are not familiar with? Boggling.
#fromafar
NWP had a tele-handler fleet when they acquired The Platform Company a number of years ago and sold it to UK Platforms for allegedly preferential re-hire rates and that didn't quite go to plan, they never wanted a tele-handler fleet. Now utilization is tanking they've decided maybe tele-handlers might be a good idea, putting your rate up instead of undercutting everyone and ruining the rate for everyone else might be a better idea. In the grand scheme of things I doubt a few tele-handlers will make any difference, but holding your rate and your nerve might, but NWP have never been very good at either for a long time now.