Losses climb for HSS Hire Group
Losses have increased dramatically for HSS Hire Group, the tool hire company with the majority of its workforce based at Manchester’s Trafford Park.
In the six months to July 1 the listed company’s adjusted loss before tax grew from £2.2m in 2016 to £14.2m.
Meanwhile, turnover fell from £166.2m to £160.5m.
Chief executive Steve Ashmore said that while “significant operational change” was achieved during the first half of 2017, “both rental revenue growth and its cost base were temporarily impacted leading to reduced profitability”.
He went on: “We are facing into these challenges by taking decisive action to reinvigorate rental revenue growth through the implementation of new sales initiatives and by rolling-out cost actions that will deliver annualised cost savings of abot £13m, a number of which are enabled by the recent investment in our centralised engineering and distribution capability.
“As a result of these actions the group returned to profitability in June with revenue in growth for the first eight weeks of Q3 17 and this momentum will result in a stronger H2 relative to H1 performance leading to a healthier exit rate as we head into 2018.”
“Whilst the rate of recovery in our rental revenues has been positive, it has been materially slower than originally targeted leading to lower than expected profitability over this period.
“On this basis we expect H2 adjusted EBITA profit to be in the range of £8m to £11m.
“The new leadership team is currently conducting a thorough review of the group’s strategy to gain profitable share in what remains an attractive and fragmented market.”
