CEO’s Speedy exit amid poor trading

THE new chairman of tools, equipment and plant hire services company Speedy Hire has delivered a damning condemnation of the company’s performance in its latest trading update.

Jan Amstrand, who has stepped into an executive role on a part-time basis, also announced the shock departure of chief executive Mark Rogerson after just 18 months in the job.

Rogerson, a former RAF officer who worked in constuction for Costain and Serco before moving to Speedy, will be replaced by Russell Down, the Newton-le-Willows company’s finance director.

Down, will also retain the finance role until a replacement FD is appointed.

Amstrand said the group had encountered “a slower than expected start to the current financial year ending March 31 2016”.

Poor revenue performance has resulted from a lack of available equipment during the Newton-le-Willows company’s optimisation programme and there has been a focus on strategic accounts at the expense of SME customers.

Poor customer service caused by disruption during the implementation of a new IT and MI system also played its part, he added.

“Whilst core hire trading across strategic accounts remains strong, without an improvement in revenue trend, and ahead of any delivery of the remedial programmes, the result for FY2016 will be materially below the board’s expectations for FY2016 and the reported result for FY2015,” the update said.

In addition, discussions with a third party over the sale of its remaining oil and gas business in the Middle East have not reached a satisfactory conclusion and have been discontinued.

Amstrand said of the whole report: “This is extremely disappointing. I believe that Speedy remains a fundamentally good business but, whilst some progress has been made over the last year, the remedial action programmes have not been delivered as needed.

“Our immediate priority is to accelerate the execution of those programmes and realise the upside we believe they will deliver over the medium term.  Additionally, we will increase our focus on the SME core hire market.
 
“Improving performance is our top priority. We expect to be able to provide an update when we issue our H1 FY2016 pre close statement which will be in the last week of September.”