Beeline's blossoming
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• A management buy-out team has set up a contract hire and rental company based on Rockwood Fleet Services, which went into administrative receivership last July.
Fortner RFS managing director Barrie Dowsett and finance director Chris Odell are trading as Beeline Fleet Services, running 90 vehicles from seven sites nationwide. Another site, in Leicester, is opening this week. Beeline's 40 staff are all former Rockwood employees.
Dowsett says: "A gap has emerged between contract hire and spot rental. People haven't got the cash for new trucks and they don't want to take on vehicles for three years. They often want vehicles for two or three months until their work is sure — of course we may then end up with them for one or two years.'' Rockwood Fleet Services was one of four divisions of the Rockwood Group which collapsed last summer owing millions and putting over 2,000 jobs at risk.
Receiver Cork Gully says RFS alone owed 25.75m; Dowsett will not comment on the debts, saying it is "sticky ground". At its height, RFS employed more than 100 and ran 1,300 vehicles for the Rockwood Group.
The group's international freight and distribution services divisions have since been closed by the receiver.
Rockwood Secure Distribution was bought by Inter Forward last August and now trades as Bondelivery.