To support the ambitious international expansion, Ainscough is on a recruitment drive for UK sales staff.
In its recruitment publicity, the company says: “Over the course of the next 12 to 18 months we aim to further reinforce our position as the brand and market leader within the UK and an emerging player in Europe, the Middle East and the US.”
The company was bought out from the Ainscough family in 2007 by the current management team backed by the Bank of Scotland.
If it wants to grow to give the investors a return, it has only three choices: do more of the same; add more territories; add more/new products and services. The recruitment drive is designed to help it win an even larger share of the UK crane hire market (although with 28 depots and a fleet of 270 cranes in the UK, there is limited scope to become any more dominant). Geographic diversification is now also on the agenda.
UK crane hire firms have had a poor record in international expansion and usually come unstuck. Some, such a Sparrow have followed UK contractors to the Middle East, although Rezayat Sparrow of Saudi Arabia today bears no relation to any UK Sparrow company today.
After floating on the stock exchange, Baldwins tried to move into the USA with an acquisition of a Texan rental firm in 1999. Less than three years later, Baldwins had collapsed and was taken over by Ainscough.
Rare examples of companies that have successfully set up overseas in the crane hire business are Sarens of Belgium and Mammoet or the Netherlands, both of which have operations in the UK as well as in many other countries around the world.
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