13.03.2026

Revenues and profits fall at Ainscough

UK rental company Ainscough Crane Hire has published its results for the fiscal year to the end of September 2025.

The company saw full year revenues decline 5.2 percent to £115.5 million, compared to 2024, and was also around £1 million lower than in 2023.

Pre-tax profit for the period plummeted 67.5 percent to £3.7 million, while capital expenditure increased to £28.7 million, of which £25.2 million was spent on new cranes, helping push net debt up 16.6 percent to £37.7 million.

Ainscough’s owner, private equity firm GSO Capital Partners/Blackstone, extracted a £22 million dividend from the company following the year-end.

The company statement said:
"Market conditions were subdued during the period to the 26th of September 2025 due to the lower volumes of overall construction output recorded since January, causing order books to deteriorate for the ninth month in a row. Against this market backdrop, revenues for the company decreased by five percent with EBITDA before exceptional administrative falling from £27 million to £20.1 million, and profit after tax reduced to £3.2 million. Total net assets increased to £66.2 million from £63 million in 2024. Exceptional administrative expenses in the year were £400,000, compared to £300,000 the year before. The included restructuring costs arising from a voluntary redundancy exercise in the period.”

“Despite the subdued market conditions, the company invested £28.7 million in fixed assets, of which £25.2 million was in cranes. Net debt increased slightly to £37.7 million.”

“The company continues to take a lead in its approach to its environmental responsibilities. For the third consecutive year, the company has achieved carbon neutral status with significant focus on removing carbon emissions from our day to day operations. Over a number of years, the company has managed to significantly reduce its carbon emissions through changes to fuel types, energy providers and investment in infrastructure. For low levels of residual carbon emissions that cannot be removed through these approaches, the company has elected to offset these emissions, resulting in no net carbon emissions as a result of the company's operations.”

Vertikal Comment

While disappointing, these numbers are perhaps not as bad as might have been expected, given the challenges in the market during 2025, which caused some aggressive competitive pricing tactics in the UK marketplace. Essentially, revenues have dropped back to pre 2023 levels, but remain significantly above 2022 levels.

So far, the company has not commented on how 2026 is going and given recent news, only a fool would attempt a forecast at this point in the game. It could go either way. Watch this space.