MV COMMERCIAL
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Milton Keynes ideal for London and the Midlands
Location, location
Scotland’s rental and used truck dealer MV Commercial moves its southern premises to Milton Keynes to expand the business
Words / Images: Kevin Swallow
MV Commercial has relocated its Leighton
Buzzard facility to Milton Keynes to develop its rental and used truck business in the South East.
Director Tom O’Rourke says the Livingston-based rental and used truck dealer outgrew its Leighton Buzzard location and was looking to move to a site with all the contemporary facilities to manage and expand the business.
MV Commercial is now a tenant of PPG Weightlifter and Knapen Trailer agent Newton Trailers, whose owner Andrew Smith built a six-acre £3.5m site with an authorised test facility (ATF) just off J13 of the M1, eight miles from the old site in Harlington.
The site has a four-bay workshop with 26m-long pits, a German-built Maha multi-post lifting system that can elevate a fully-loaded artic, parts storage, and enough space to park more than 300 trailers.
Well placed
Milton Keynes is where all the big players are based and it provides great access to London and the Midlands, says O’Rourke. “A third of our business is in the South East. With London’s Low Emission Zone (LEZ) we have a lot of Euro-4/5 trucks on hire that we would look to sell into that market in the next two years. It’s a great place to showcase equipment.” MV Commercial has taken a 0.5-acre site there and appointed Billy Alexander, who is relocating from the west coast of Scotland, as general manager. O’Rourke believes the space, location, onsite workshop facilities and MoT bay are ideal for the rental leet, and MV Commercial will put work back into Newton Trailers with about ive MoTs a week on its rolling stock.
“We will have 20 vehicles on site, with a portfolio of 250 hire vehicles from 7.5-tonne GVW to tractor vehicles and crane lorries operating from the site,” he says.
“We want to develop the tractor business and we see an opportunity to contract hire tractors with tipping gear, which will operate well with Newton Trailers and its products.” There are few tractor units with tipping gear available for hire, he says. “We would like to put another 50 crane trucks on hire this year and expand the general rental business by another 100 trucks, taking the leet to 800.”
Since its move to Milton Keynes, MV Commercial has picked up several new customers wanting to hire a moving loor trailer and 6x4 tractor. “We have also ordered 20 new Iveco Stralis 6x4 tractors with walking loor trailers,” says O’Rourke. “We see the recycling, moving-loor/ejector market as a rental sector that will expand and realise strong rental to asset values.” ■
PREVIOUS DEALS
Today, MV Commercial operates out of four sites. It has two sites in Livingston – a head office and a workshop/paintshop – with two other sites in Haydock (CM, 26 May 2011) and Milton Keynes. It employs 50 people.
In January 2005, MV Commercial bought Regal Truck Rental. Around that time it also struck its initial deal with TLS Vehicle Rental for 217 fridge trucks and tractors, which came with more than 100 customers.
Both deals helped establish the business in England (CM, 26 January 2006). At the end of 2010, it finalised its second deal with TLS for £4m to take 250 assets on hire, with 120 customers, from TLS Vehicle Rental.
FINANCE
Increased demand set to boost turnover Although only half way through its financial year, MV Commercial is set to increase turnover by 25%. Director Tom O’Rourke says this is because it is harder to get finance now than a few years ago and the economic uncertainty. “People are renting for one or two years so there is an increase in demand,” he explains.
The projected increase for 2011/12 comes off the back of a successful 2010/11 that saw turnover increase £4m to £15m, the company’s best 12-month period in its 12-year history. This included the TLS deal struck at the end of 2010 (CM, 16 December 2010) for approximately 250 assets on hire contract with 120 customers from TLS Vehicle Rental.
The increase in 2010/11 turnover was driven by selling the specialised original-build crane lorry equipment MV Commercial started building and hiring in 2007 (CM, 26 June 2008). “Those crane vehicles have come of age and we have been pleasantly surprised by the residual values of the trucks,” O’Rourke says.
Demand from the market for second-hand original-build crane lorries has been strong. “When you modify [stretch] an existing mature chassis and put on a new crane, subframe and body, while it’s cheaper upfront, in four years’ time when you go to dispose of it the life of the chassis is spent and it becomes a problem to sell,” he adds.
By going down the original-build route you can get more for your money. “If you build everything new on an original vehicle it is more expensive and requires more financial outlay. However, you can finance the truck over six years and at the end the asset has a better residual value, it’s fit for purpose, and meant to be what it actually is,” he says.
With registrations down in 2008 and 2009 there are a lot of crane vehicles that need to be built. “It takes three months to build a crane lorry – crane, sub-chassis and body – fitting it out for a specific market place involves a lot of work. We offer a one-stop-shop and buy back the part exchange.” O’Rourke sees the next 12 months as a period of consolidation and points to a 196-strong network of authorised repairers as providing the opportunity to develop a new depot in another area if required.