HSS Hire, the London-listed tool hire group, has appointed its second new chief executive in two years after struggling to stem losses.
The company said on Monday that Steve Ashmore would become its new boss from June this year, a month after it announced it was launching a search for an external chief executive.
Difficulties in HSS’s core business have sent shares down by 75 per cent since its 2015 listing and by almost 50 per cent in the past 12 months.
Mr Ashmore spent eleven years at the supply chain firm Exel followed by a decade at the heating group Wolseley, before joining Brammer, an industrial maintenance products distributor, for a short stint as an executive director last March.
He served as the head of Brammer’s UK, Ireland and Icelandic businesses for six months, and departed shortly before the group announced it was to sell itself to Advent, a private equity house.
Mr Ashmore replaces John Gill, who will formally step down tomorrow after just 19 months in the top job and eight years at the company.
After a profit warning last November, the company said in April that its losses had deepened in 2016. While HSS increased sales by almost 10 per cent, pre-tax losses grew by more than 25 per cent to £17.4m for the year as a restructuring programme dragged on.
Last month chairman Alan Peterson said Mr Gill, the company’s former chief operating officer, had led HSS “through a period of significant change as we implemented our new operating model”, but that a new chief executive was needed as it shifted focus to expanding sales.
The UK construction sector has struggled over the past year, as uncertainty hit investment in the run-up to the Brexit vote. But HSS has significantly underperformed its rival Speedy Hire in the past 12 months. Speedy Hire’s shares plummeted in 2015 but are up 36 per cent over the past year as its turnround has gained momentum.
The two companies abandoned talks of a merger in late 2015, but some analysts are hopeful of a revival.
“A gigantic gulf has opened between the two since Speedy’s new chief executive joined” in mid-2015, said Barry Gibb, an analyst at Beaufort Securities. “Speedy always said to us that the timing wasn’t right [for a deal with HSS]. We have some hope they are still considering taking another pop at HSS.”
Speedy has focused more on higher sales to small customers and on non-hire revenues, such as training and inspection, to boost revenues after a period of declining sales and a battle with an activist investor.
HSS has invested in a new distribution centre to improve its ability to offer same-day and next-day hire services, as well as shuttering unprofitable stores.
Shares in HSS were flat on Monday’s announcement.
