Belgium’s TVH Group Bids to Acquire U.K.-based Rental Company Lavendon

Belgian industrial equipment supplier TVH Group this week proposed to buy U.K.-based rental firm Lavendon Group, making an offer worth £348 million (about U.S. $434 million), according to U.K. news reports.

Michael Roth

Nov. 25, 2016

A Nationwide Platform lift is serviced at a Lavendon shop.

Belgian industrial equipment supplier TVH Group this week proposed to buy U.K. rental firm Lavendon Group, making an offer worth £348 million (about U.S. $434 million), according to U.K. news reports. However Lavendon’s board has urged shareholders to take no action at this time. TVH Group said today, Nov. 25, that it has obtained a stake of about 9 percent of the Lavendon Group, which is listed on the London stock exchange.

Lavendon has branches in several European countries and the Middle East. TVH said the acquisition would enable it to expand, particularly in France, the U.K. and the Middle East. TVH made an unsolicited offer for Lavendon in August, which was rejected. Lavendon’s major shareholders are not unanimously in support of a deal. Lavendon officials said the company is in “robust health, well-positioned across diverse geographic markets, with strong revenue growth, profits, cash flow and ROCE and a clear strategic direction to deliver substantial shareholder value over the medium term.”

About the Author

Michael Roth

Editor

Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.