02.02.2005

Cox Plant Ltd call in Administrators

Cox Pant Ltd of Bilston near Wolverhampton, the company that regained its independence in spring 2002, following a Management Buy Out from Andrews Sykes Ltd, has entered administration with substantial debts.

Simon Allport and Ian Best of Ernst & Young LLP were appointed joint administrators to Cox Plant Limited on the 28 January 2005.

Cox plant Ltd is one of the oldest names in the UK plant hire business, having been founded as H Cox & Sons in 1941. The business eventually ended up with Andrews Sykes group PLC in 1998, but the General rental business did not sit well with such a specialist rental company and in the Spring of 2002 Cox Plant was purchased via an MBO with Keith Price as Managing Director, David Symons as Commercial director and Paul Bamford as Business development director.

Keith Price and Paul Bamford own 30 percent of the shares each while David Symons and his wife have a combined holding of 40 percent.

After the buy out the company went on a major buying spree spending over five million pounds on new equipment, including £2.8 million on Caterpillar equipment from Finning UK, comprising 32 telehandlers and 100 mini excavators.

In 2003 the company went on the Acquisition trail, buying Hire-Line and Marplant in October 2003, followed by Rodgers plant in November 2003. This built the depot network up to 30 outlets.

The business generated just over £18 million of revenues in its fiscal year 2003 with a net profit of £600,000.

In 2004 the high leverage took its toll and the company began retrenching, selling its access business to AJ access among other disposals.

According to a very brief release from Ernst &Young, Cox Plant now operates out of 11 locations principally in Scotland and the south east of England.

Included in the Scottish business is a fleet of cranes, said to number around 20 units.

The Ernst & Young statement says

“The joint administrators are continuing to trade the business, and are in the process of exploring either the rescue of the company or selling the business and its assets as a going concern”.