23.11.2018

Ainscough rebalances

UK rental company Ainscough Crane Hire has announced further layoffs and depot closures as it addresses a slowdown in business volumes.

The closures include its depots in the Wirral - with coverage of the area shifting to Preston and Manchester depots and Newcastle with coverage now shifting to Stockton. At the same time Coventry and Dundee depots will be reduced to two and three crane satellites respectively. Finally, it is also reducing headcount in some of its administration areas. It is understood that some relocations are being discussed.

In an update to employees, chief executive Janet Entwistle said that current economic uncertainty is affecting the company’s customers which in turn is having an impact on demand for its services. She confirmed that volumes this year are running around 15 percent lower than last year. This in turn has pushed costs up to 94 percent of sales compared to 80 percent three years ago, highlighting the need to further reduce costs.

The company has also released an official statement which says:
"We regularly review our fleet capacity and depot structure to ensure we can meet the current and future requirement of our customers. As part of our regular reviews we have recently made a small number of changes to our business, which includes closing two of our smaller depots, where we can meet our customer needs from other nearby depots. This does not affect our ability to deliver a truly national service from our 30 locations across the UK."

Vertikal Comment

As the country’s largest and possibly only truly national crane hire company, Ainscough faces the challenge of competing with well run local or regional rental companies for local work. Given the inevitable corporate nature of such large businesses a well run locally owned company will always outperform a national corporation for this type of business. Where companies like Ainscough can score is with major national contractors, which want a single supplier along with heavy lifting and major projects where its resources and scale are major advantages.

Even after the cutbacks 30 locations in the UK is still very extensive coverage, in fact some would say that this is still excessive, although worsening traffic congestion around the country does obligate more closer locations in order to offer a truly national coverage. Announcing such changes at this time of year will never be appreciated, one has to wonder why it is being done now, rather than earlier in year or after Christmas?

While changes such as this are inevitable from time to time in any company, it does have a negative effect on overall morale and give succour to competitors. It is nothing new, over the past 40 years the UK crane rental industry has seen at least two waves of ‘consolidation’ with one big company rising above all others and then gradually fading as locally owned competition gains ground and nibbles away at the big players local operations. Ainscough has the challenge of fighting with the local crane companies and big global players such as Sarens, Mammoet and ALE for the big projects, not the easiest place to be.