Lavendon Group Plc, parent company of the UK's Nationwide Access, has published its latest financial results that show that the organisation is now the clear market leader in the European powered access equipment market. In its 2001 Preliminary Results, Lavendon announced that its revenue grew 33 percent to £90.1 million. The organisation's operating profit also rose by eight percent to £14.9 million.

This growth comes in spite of significant investment throughout Europe in the company's Nationwide and Zooom operations and a slowdown in the telecommunications and manufacturing sectors in the UK, says David Price, Executive Chairman of Lavendon Group. He confidently predicts that the Group's growth will continue now it has completed its two-year £168 million accelerated investment programme.

This programme enabled Nationwide to expand its customer base by 20 percent, while in Germany Zooom increased its customers by 39 percent. The programme has also helped the Group enlarge its depot network in the past two years from 66 to 166 locations and increase its rental fleet from 4,250 to 11,300 units. The report also shows that Lavendon's customer base has now risen to over 30,000 across Europe, compared to 23,000 in 2000.

The European expansion has also meant that the Group has been able to enlarge its French operations and establish new businesses in Spain and Austria, under the Zooom brand. The company is now looking to enlarge these operations in 2002.

"Our original strategic objective was to become the clear market leader in Europe. That goal has now been achieved as a result of the acceleration of our investment programme," says David Price. He continues: "With demand for powered access expected to quadruple in the next five to ten years across the European market place, the medium and longer term prospects for the Group look especially attractive, and would obviously be further enhanced if there was to be some improvement in European economic conditions generally."

Nationwide is headquartered in Lutterworth, Leicestershire and its hire fleet is now twice the size of its nearest UK competitor. All of the company's depots comply with Nationwide's ISO 9002 accreditation.

A copy of the 2001 Preliminary Results can be downloaded from Lavendon's website at www.lavendongroup.com, while details on Nationwide can be found at www.nationwideaccess.com.

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March 2002 Nat2.027a