Pressman PR

Year end figures for King Sturge Plant & Machinery have confirmed its market leading position with realisations at nearly triple the levels seen just three years ago.

King Sturge increased its market share and became the UK’s largest Plant and Machinery business with the acquisition of the team from Bache Treharne in February.

And while the current economic turmoil has caused difficulties for many businesses it looks like the combined team will increasingly be busy as some companies go into insolvency while others seek to liquidate assets to ride out the credit crunch.

In the financial year ending 30 April 2008 the team sold nearly £17 million’s worth of machinery, a substantial gain on 2006-2007’s total of £11 million - which itself was considerably up on the previous year’s total of £6 million.

The substantial growth last year was enhanced by the integration of the Bache Treharne online auction system which helped to consolidate an excellent year of trading, the highlight of which was a print machinery sale which realised an impressive total of £8.2m.

Mike Hanson, who heads up King Sturge Plant & Machinery’s national agency operation, confirmed that the acquisition of Bache Treharne’s business and their online auction system in February had been key to the success.

Mr Hanson said: “The acquisition of the Bache Treharne team was the key to consolidating our market position in the Midlands. The online auction system has made it more cost effective to dispose of machinery by auction”

In the past, public auction sales were held on-site, or sales were held by private treaty or tender. However in the final quarter’s trading there were only ten on-site auctions and 16 online auctions - all in the period from February to the end of April. There were also two tenders and 100 private treaty sales during the year.

Peter Singleton, Managing Partner, King Sturge Plant & Machinery agreed: “Our three year business plan has seen our agency business triple in size and we now have the largest team in the UK not only through the acquisition of the Bache Treharne team but also through the recruitment of the team from Savills adding to the original Edward Rushton Son and Kenyon and Colebrook Evans McKenzie expertise.”

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