£3.5m fleet boost
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by Juliet Parish • Contract hire and rentals firm Transfleet Services has bought assets worth £3.5m from rival Rockfield, boosting its 6,800-strong fleet with 400 trucks. Last Thursday Transfleet completed the deal which includes a fleet of mostly refrigerated units and business with a projected turnover for this year of ,C3m, from Rockfield's parent Union International.
The food processing giant had been trying to sell its subsidiary, which had a turnover of £4.5m last year, for the past couple of years. The predominantly contract hire business, Rockfield, made only a marginal profit of £50,000 last year and was on the market as part of its parent's transport disposal programme. Last June Walsall-based Topmark Vehicle Contracts had agreed in principle to buy Rockfield. But the deal with the Southern Water subsidiary fell through (CM 24-30 June).
Union International is still trying to hive off four former Rockfield depots at Tamworth, Greenwich, Birmingham and Sandycroft, which Transfleet did not acquire.
Union International has also retained 40 staff who worked at Rockfield, which are expected to be made redundant.
It is now considering selling Dual Carriage, its Liverpool-based haulage firm. It has eight depots and uses up to 200 subcontracted trucks a day, as well as a fleet of 14 of its own trucks.
El Newly appointed Transfleet managing director Brian Templar says the giant did not need to increase its depot network of 24 main depots and six smaller sites: "The deal gave us the growth we wanted without investing in overheads. It is not a strategic repositioning for us," says Templar.
The 41-year-old former Federal Express director and Swift Transport Services managing director joined the £100m turnover business this month from Northamptonshire-based logistics consultancy Davies & Robson.