Speedy reports progress on Middle East withdrawal

UK-headquartered rental company Speedy Hire has said good progress has been made on the accelerated restructuring of its Middle Eastern business and withdrawal from general hire in the region.

Speedy announced it was scaling back its Middle Eastern business in November last year, following accounting regularities which led to a full-year loss for 2013.

In a brief trading update, the company reiterated that it was winding up its general rental business in the Middle East to stem losses and build value in its remaining oil and gas services division – a business in which it said the mobilisation of major contracts was now all but complete.

“Despite a challenging year in the Middle East, ongoing strong performance of the group in the UK gives the board confidence that results for the full year ending 31 March, 2015, will be in line with its expectations,” the company said.

Speedy said revenues for the first nine months of the fiscal year increased 9.9% over the same period last year. It did not supply figures in the update.

It added that its network optimisation programme was on track to be completed ahead of schedule by the end of the financial year with the group's new National Distribution Centre (NDC) in Tamworth, UK, now operational.

It said the NDC and eight UK Multi-Service Centres would serve as hubs within the group's national network, delivering greater efficiencies in distribution, engineering and repair and asset utilisation.