Appleton to address financial sustainability at Europlatform conference

Kevin Appleton, chief executive of Lavendon group, will be one of the top level speakers at this year's Europlatform aerial platform rental conference.

The conference, being held in Maastricht, The Netherlands on 13 September, the day before the APEX exhibition, has the theme of Financing Growth.

Mr Appleton will address the topic of generating sustainable returns in the access rental sector, and in particular will focus on financial measures such as return on capital employed (ROCE), an index much used in general business but not widely in the rental sector.

He says the ROCE tool places an emphasis on longer term business performance and less focus on aggressive replacement of fleets as business conditions change. His presentation will directly address the question of how rental companies can better manage their operations through business cycles.

Other topics in the conference will cover trends in availability of asset finance, making successful acquisition and incentivising sales staff.

Europlatform is jointly organised by Access International and the International Powered Access Federation (IPAF). For more information, see www.europlatform.info.