News

A grim year for trailer rental firms leads to dramatic "something's better-than-nothing" offer. Transrent, a leading trailer rental firm, is emerging from a week of financial turmoil with what looks like a spectacular refinancing coup. Chief executive Tom Hart appears to be close to pulling off a deal in which most of the firm's funders will accept significantly less than they are owed - and a new, sole funder will buy out the leases and take the business forward.

Hart declined to state  how much has been offered but said it was much more than 60p in the pound. Many of the funders indicated acceptance after intense activity last week, Hart says. "We have to have a substantial majority [for acceptance] and we are on the way to achieving that," he says. Hart, who refinanced the business only eight months ago, says: "Essentially the debt that we owe is more than the fleet is worth. Market conditions have deteriorated dramatically during the year."

The state of the market is a far greater problem for others than for Transrent, Hart says - it is just that his company's ownership and funding structure means that they have to be addressed now. "Operationally, we are out-performing everybody in the market," he says. Transrent is achieving "significant rate premiums. Our average weekly rental rate is substantially higher than the competition can get". Motor Transport detected a positive industry sentiment towards Hart and his efforts to put the business on a more solid  base.

A collapse at Transrent would damage the whole sector in the eyes of funders and the flood of trailers it would release would set the sector back by a year, sources said. Hart commented: "We feel we have dealt with everybody with integrity something which has not always been evident in the sector."