05.07.2005

David Price to quit Lavendon

David Price chairman of Lavendon, Europe’s largest aerial lift rental company, parent of Nationwide Access in the UK, Zooom in France, Germany and Spain and Rapid Access in the Middle East, has announced that he will retire and leave the company following his 60th birthday.

Accordingly, the Company has agreed with Price that he will retire from the Board and the Company on 24 September 2005. He has though agreed to make himself available to the Board for consultation, for a period of 12 months following his retirement.

John Gordon, currently the Company's senior non-executive director, will assume the role of Chairman following Prices departure.


In order to maintain the current number of directors the company also announced the appointment of Timothy Ross as a non-executive director, with effect from October first 2005.

Ross (56) a qualified solicitor, is currently Chairman of Connaught Plc and Senior Non-Executive Director of Ennstone Plc. He spent most of his career with George Wimpey Plc, where he retired as Chief Executive of the Minerals Group and a main board director in 1996, after 26 years.

David Price led a management buy in of Nationwide Access in 1992, The company had been founded by David Wraith and Gary Smith, in the late 80’s but the down turn of the early 90’s caused Wraith to sell up and concentrate on cabins. Price had previously been with GKN, his last position being in Australia.

The Lavendon buy in was funded by Cinven, the venture capital group.

Lavendon was floated as a public company in 1996 and grew substantially throughout the late 90’s becoming the market leader in both the UK and Germany.

Price has distanced himself increasingly from day to day matters since appointing Kevin Appleton as CEO ome two years ago.
He has also reduced his shareholding in the business and in the past few weeks reduced his holding to around five percent with the sale of 700,000 shares.