HSS opening one new depot every week

HSS Hire is opening an average of one new ‘local’ depot per week and aims to create 50 new stores this year. It opened 13 in the first quarter of this year.

The news on depot openings came as HSS announced its financial results for 2015, with 25.5% increase in revenues to £284.6 million and operating profits up 10.3% to £23.6 million. Organic revenue growth was 18.7%.

However, the company’s finance expenses increased by more than 50% to £31.0 million for the year, mainly related to the company’s £200 million refinancing in February 2014. This led to a loss before tax of £8.5 million for the year.

HSS said it had seen robust volume growth in both its core and specialist businesses, with growth significantly ahead of the market, and said kit was encouraged by trading at the start of 2015, despite some uncertainty created by the General Election in May.

Chris Davies, Chief Executive Officer of HSS, said: “2014 was a year of excellent progress as we continued to deliver strong growth across both our Core and Specialist businesses. This performance reflects both our focus on the less cyclical and higher value-added ‘maintain’ and ‘operate’ segments of the market and a deliberate customer demand-led approach to investment in our hire fleet.

“We have made an encouraging start to 2015 and trading is in line with our expectations. The roll-out of our Local Branches is continuing to plan, with new branches opening at the rate of one a week, and the customer response continues to be positive.“

Mr Davies said HSS was reviewing a number of potential specialist acquisition targets.

In the final quarter of 2014 the company opened an equipment refurbishment facility, which will enable it to extend the life of its fleet.