18.02.2010

UK crane hirers facing difficulties

Two UK crane hire companies have filed for protection form their creditors, under English bankruptcy rules. Newbury based Venture Lifting services has according to an employee who took our call, appointed a liquidator.

It is unusual however for a company to go directly to liquidation without appointing an administrator first in order to attempt a sale an realise the recovery of funds for a failed companies creditors. No further information was provided. We do know though that Venture had debts with other UK crane rental companies including Reading based Terranova, which has also appointed an administrator.

Several calls and emails to Terranova over the past few days has only resulted in acknowledgement of some difficulties and promises for a call back.

We do know however that the Glovers, Alex senior and his son Alex, who own and manage the the company, successfully petitioned for an administration order on January 29th. Once an order has been granted a company has up to 10 days to appoint an administrator and seek protection from its creditors while they attempt to restructure the business. We have now had confirmation that an administrator was appointed on February 15th.

We also know that the Glovers registered a new company last week - Terranova Cranes Ltd, with the same directors and the same address as its existing business Terranova Lifting Ltd as part of their campaign to save the business.

The original Terranova company -Terranova (Crane Hire) Ltd was established in 1979 and failed in 1992 as the last big recession was coming to an end. The Glovers having lost almost everything, started up again and have built up a strong and well respected reputation over the past 18 years.

The company was 11th in the 2009 Cranes & Access Top 30 crane rental companies in the UK and Ireland with a claimed 45 mobile cranes.

Vertikal Comment

We do not really know enough about the situation at either company to make any meaningful comment. What we can say is that a number of rental companies have used up their reserves during 2009 and have been hit with the unusually hard winter weather and are now facing the double whammy of their banks or finance companies getting tough at the same time as they are being hit with bad debts.

The next six months are likely to see some more companies run into difficulties, especially those who have not kept a tight control on their debtors.