The Business
Brandon Hire is a leading tool and equipment hire business with headquarters in Bristol which operated a national network of over 140 depots. The business services a wide range of customers with c.30,000 local trade and smaller business accounts as well as national contracts with larger customers. Customers principally operate in a range of maintenance, building and service sectors. The business had approximately 900 employees across the group. Brandon was previously part of Wolseley Plc and the original transaction was a complex carve-out taking eighteen months to complete with a number of sites shared with its former parent.
Investment thesis
The initial focus of the plan was to implement a successful, clean separation from Wolseley, exiting shared sites whilst retaining the bulk of the revenues and key clients, establishing an independent, standalone business under a refocused brand. Post separation, the core strategy was to further develop the company as the leading national player focused on the local market, capitalising on the attractive growth opportunity in local repair and maintenance as well as maximising asset efficiency and utilisation together with implementing a number of other projects and margin initiatives. Selective M&A also formed part of the investment thesis strengthening and broadening Brandon’s offering with further investment in the team additionally planned.
Exit
The successful implementation of the Group’s strategy following the complex carve-out from Wolseley, enabled Brandon Hire to achieve strong earnings growth with development of the business through site, product and service expansion supported by investment in the team and systems together with M&A. A strong reputation in the marketplace as a well-run, well-positioned business, which remained highly invested, made Brandon Hire attractive strategically to a wide range of buyers and Rutland successfully completed the sale of Brandon Hire to Vp plc, a UK listed specialist rental group, delivering a 2.6x money multiple to investors.
