09.10.2015

Lavendon ups capex to £85 million

UK based international rental group Lavendon has increased this year’s capital investment in its rental fleet to £85 million, which includes pulling £20 million forward from next year’s budget (see: Profit boost for Lavendon).

The new investment is part of a major fleet extension and renewal programme, and includes 1,500 boom lifts, 1,450 scissor lifts and 200 truck and van mounted lifts - all of which have now entered its rental fleets in the UK, Germany, France, Belgium and the Middle East.

Geographically, UK’s Nationwide Platforms received the lion’s share of investment at £39 million, while its Middle East operation Rapid received £20 million. In central Europe, the group’s French operation Lavendon had £12 million whilst Gardemann in Germany spent £11 million and DK Rental, which operates in Belgium, £3 million.
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The investment is part of a major fleet extension and renewal programme

The purchases have been placed with a wide number of suppliers, although 60 percent of the investment was spent on ‘bread and butter’ products from Genie and Skyjack. Other suppliers included Haulotte, Ruthmann, Palfinger, GSR, CTE, MEC and Power Towers etc...
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Gardemann has ordered 50 Ruthmann truck mounted lifts in a deal worth €6.4 million

Lavendon chief executive Don Kenny, said: “The investment of £85 million in our rental fleet is part of our ongoing fleet optimisation strategy, which includes pulling forward £20 million of investment from 2016 into 2015. It demonstrates our commitment to delivering the investment required to grow the business and our confidence in the group’s ability to capitalize on our strong market positions.”

Vertikal Comment

While this seems like a massive investment, when you are running a fleet as large as Lavendon’s this only just manages to maintain the average age, possibly with a little expansion. However what it does do is reconfigure and streamline the fleet, this is particularly true with the vehicle mounted fleet where the purchases represent a significantly larger percentage of the whole.

All in all it is very encouraging to see this level of investment in new powered access equipment which, given that a good deal is replacement, also produces a large volume of used equipment which will hopefully move to developing or less mature powered access markets where it can do much good.