04.06.2015

Jennings retires

John Jennings, chairman of UK based Clements Equipment Hire, is retiring after more than five decades in the business.

Clements, 69, began his career in the manufacturing and distribution industry when he joined Lumley Saville in 1961, which at that time was the sole distributor for International Harvester in the south of England. He soon spotted the potential for the emerging tool and equipment rental market and became the owner of Rugby-based rental company Alljay Tool Hire.

Alljay was acquired in 1990 by the Deeley Group, which had owned Clements since 1967, the two companies were merged to become Clements Alljay with Jennings as managing director, a job he held for 17 years. The company expanded into the self-propelled access market in 1996 with the acquisition of Thumb-a-Lift Ltd of Leamington Spa.

In 2007 the Deeley group was looking to sell Clements, and Jennings led a management buyout of the company with Jim Longstaff, who had been an equipment supplier to Clements over a number of years, latterly with Sky King. Since then the business, which is based in Coventry, has gone from strength to strength, gradually expanding its product range and becoming a major player in the area.
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John Jennings

Jennings was also one of the original founding members of the Hire Association of Europe (HAE), which represents UK tool and general rental companies. Managing director Jim Longstaff takes over as chairman, while Adrian Hutchinson, who has worked with the company as operations director since 2011, becomes the new managing director.

Longstaff said: “John has been the keystone to the business for many years so it will be strange to see him go. He will still be involved on some level and has agreed to do some consulting work for us helping with a number of industry accreditations. We are now looking for growth in 2015 and are expanding considerably. I am pleased to see Adrian stepping up as managing director and believe he will do a wonderful job taking the business forward.”
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Jim Longstaff (L) and Adrian Hutchinson of Clements

Speaking of his career over the past 50 years Jennings said: “I moved from working for a manufacturer and distributor into the hire side of the industry in 1964, and have been in business in Coventry and Rugby for the remainder of that time. I moved to Clements in 1990 when I joined as managing director as the then owners had bought my company in Rugby and offered me the opportunity to run both.”

“Then, in 2007, the owner of Clements declared it was no longer a core business in their group activities, and in conjunction with Jim Longstaff we took it independent. The growth at Clements has been quite phenomenal. Of course, with the wonderful benefit of hindsight - who would have bought a company in 2007 knowing that in 2008 we were going to get a great recession?”