Business booms following MBO
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• Four months after a management buyout of Hull Renault dealership Thompson, managing director Brian Silvey remains pleased by the company s progress. It s all going very well, he reports.
We re getting plenty of interest in Magnums and Premiums, and Midlum is starting to pick up too, Silvey adds. What s more, we re retaining a lot of service work because we supply so many of them complete with repair and maintenance contracts.
The used vehicle side is enjoying some success too, and eight-wheelers have become something of a speciality. We re selling them nationally, Silvey explains. We view used as an opportunity rather than a problem.
Locally, of course, it s used Premium and Magnum tractors that attract buyers, he says. With the docks here many operators are on Continental work they re looking for 4x2 s with big cabs, engines, and fuel tanks. Thompson sold just over ioo second-hand trucks in zoo o, along with more than io o new models and Go new vans.
There s room for expansion at our premises in Hull, which were only built four-and-a-half years ago, but we re also developing our site at Boroughbridge, he says. We ve had that for two years.
There is one problem, however. Silvey is trying to recruit four or five truck fitters, and he is finding them difficult to find.
There just aren t the qualified technicians out there, he says, and the dealership is expanding quicker than the pace at which it can develop talent in-house.
Is he worried that Volvo s takeover of Renault could result in their dealer networks ultimately being merged? He strongly doubts that this will happen: Manufacturers have found that if you merge two franchises you end up with fewer trucks being sold, not more, he concludes.