01.02.2021

Employee ownership for Horizon

UK rental company Horizon Platforms has announced that ownership of the company will transition to new Employee Ownership Trust, from founders and majority owners Ben Hirst and Ruairi Duggan.
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Ben Hirst (L) and Ruairi Duggan

Horizon, which is based in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, worked with audit, tax and consulting firm RSM to set up the trust and processes required to make it happen. It is thought that this will see it become the first such business in the powered access industry. Chief executive Hirst and strategic account director, Duggan, will remain with the business to oversee the transition and continued growth.
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The management team (L-R) Tom Matthews, David Webster, Ben Hirst, Lucy Normanton, Rory Duggan, Marco Maccio and Adrian Bleasdale

Hirst said: “This is the proudest moment of my career. Transferring ownership into the hands of our employees offers this organisation the opportunity to live on, and truly become what I have always strived to achieve, a business built for our grandchildren. Becoming employee owned is about maintaining and building on the unique Horizon culture. The business and its employees have a real family ethos and so personally, I want to be a part of what I expect to be the most exciting phase of Horizon’s journey yet.”

“Myself and Lucy Normanton, director of people & internal communications, spoke to many businesses who had transitioned to an EOT, giving us valuable feedback and advice on their own experiences. There was an overwhelming sense that it had been the best choice for all the businesses we spoke to and therefore cemented our own decision to move forward in this way.”
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Ben Hirst

Duggan added: “I truly believe that we have built a very special company and one that is only at the beginning of its journey. We believe that now is precisely the time to transition ownership to our team as we approach our next phase of growth, but in true Horizon style, we are daring to be different. After 14 years of trading, our main focus remains the same, to make our customers happy and keep them returning to us. Customers want clarity, reassurance and peace of mind when their people are working at height, and our whole organisation is focused on delivering just that.”
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Ruairi Duggan

Ben Hirst set up the business in January 2008 after leaving UpLift Platforms, where he was operations director, working alongside Duggan and fellow UpLift founder Nick Higgins. UpLift had been effectively acquired by AFI in September 2006 (see: AFI to merge with UpLift) to become AFI Uplift.

Duggan joined Hirst in 2009, after his non-compete period with AFI had ended – he and Higgins had established UpLift in May 2001. Kevin Appleton, a former chief executive of Lavendon - owner of Nationwide Platforms - joined the company as a non-executive in 2014 and also holds some of the equity, as do senior members of the management team, chief operating officer Adrian Bleasdale and account manager and employee number two Mathew Fray.

The company runs around 850 aerial work platforms from its location in Normanton, Near Wakefield with an average of 1,400 daily rentals, helped by a national network of rehire/cross hire partnerships. Revenues in 2019 were roughly £13.3 million with a pre-tax profit of £270,000 and total assets of £9.1 million – roughly £3 million net.

Vertikal Comment

This looks like an excellent move and likely to be far more successful that selling to a private equity firm or one of the major national rental companies. Hirst and Duggan have built a strong corporate culture at Horizon, with a strong team. They have direct experience of the alternative ways of crystalising an owner’s value in the business. This move will also help with a smooth management transition while an extra incentive for employees in terms of potential dividends and long term investment growth.

It is excellent to see this form of ownership arrive in the aerial lift industry, there are more than 600 companies in the UK that are owned by employee trusts, and statistics show that on average they substantially outperform private equity owned businesses.

It will be interesting to watch the company as it develops under the new ownership arrangement.