Ainscough completes GWS purchase

The worst kept secret in UK crane industry is now out: after many months of discussions Ainscough has finally completed the takeover of the mobile crane hire operations of Initial GWS. The price was thought to be in the region of £20m to £25m ($30m-$37m).

The vendor was the conglomerate Rentokil Initial which announced in August 1999 that it was putting its non-core businesses up for sale, including Initial Plant Services. The GWS mobile cranes were the last part to be sold. Previously Weldex had bought the crawler crane fleet, Loxam of France bought the PTP aerial work platform rental business and Sparrows Offshore was bought by its management.

The addition of GWS’s 350 (approx.) mobile cranes now gives Ainscough a fleet of about 600 cranes, though the sale of about 100 of GWS’s older machines has already begun. Initial GWS was previously the largest crane hire company in the UK. This title now goes to Ainscough.

Baldwins Industrial Services chairman Richard Baldwin confirmed that he made a bid for GWS but was rejected.

Martin Ainscough, chairman of Ainscough said: “We are delighted that we have been able to acquire a company with such an illustrious history as Grayston, White and Sparrow. This has only been made possible due to under investment and over capacity in the market place, and for us to succeed in the future it is imperative that we address both of these issues. Sadly there may be redundancies as the GWS Head Office in Stockton is wound down and also at depots around the country where business levels dictate."

One person who has kept their job is Initial GWS managing director Andrew Makepeace, who is now managing director of Ainscough GWS.

Martin Ainscough continued: “With this latest acquisition we will initially have over 600 cranes in our fleet but we are already in the process of significant rationalisation by selling the oldest cranes in the GWS fleet. We have already placed orders for some new equipment and with this our intention is to operate approximately 500 cranes to ensure our clients receive the most modern and reliable equipment available. We will be offering our new on-line booking service, e4lift.com, to all existing GWS customers enabling them to view management reports over the net. We will also invite them to use our National Hire Centre which is already proving to be a huge success for Ainscough clients who wish to deal with one point of contact on a national basis.”