15.07.2008

Capital Access

Stories have been circulating in the UK this week concerning Capital Access, the Hemel Hempstead and Stoke based powered access rental company.

Until now we have not had enough solid information that we were sure of to publish anything. We have now confirmed enought facts that we can at least help seperate most of the facts from the rumours in what what appears to be an industry scandal.

The two company directors, Richard James Creedy and Gareth William Gillings have abandoned the business after running up some serious levels of debt.

Reports that the two have fled to Cyprus is hard to confirm 100 percent, however we do not have it from two seperate, reliable sources who should know, that Creedy has gone to Cyprus while Gillings has gone to Spain.

A visit to the company’s facility in Hemel Hemptsead confirmed that the premises have been abandoned, with only a completely empty Portakabin and a few parked machines left behind. A man in an adjacent building said that he understood that the owners “had gone on holiday” Although all evidence of any active or ongoing business has also been removed.

Calls to the company’s Hemel number did rang out yesterday but remained unanswered. Calls to the Stoke number were redirected to a mobile phone of one of the employees who promised to have a director call back. Until now hey have not.

Some reports claimed that up to 60 relatively new aerial lifts that were leased have disappeared and possibly left the country. However, this has not been confirmed in any way,and looks increasingly unlikely.

We are aware however that at least one truck load of lifts was collected last week and departed northeard without paperwork.

The rest of the company's 120 to 140 units, are most likely still out on contracts or on site awaiting collection while a few others are likely to have already been repossesed and/or grabbed by creditors.

Finance companies are currently in the process of tracking down the equipment and until that process has been completed there is no way of knowing how many units are missing.

The company recently established an IPAF training centre, and a new company Capital Access Training Services whose directors include Creedy and Gillings. The IPAF approval is likely to be put on hold now, at least until the situation is clarified. IPAF said that it did not wish, nor would it be right to make any comment on the allegations.

The Capital Access web site which is still operational, features a truck mounted lift and logo from the JV Price group, a cleaning company also based in Hemel Hempstead.

JV Price has categorically confirmed that apart from doing some business with Capital Access, and now being a creditor, it has no connection at all with the company and over the past two weeks has repeatedly tried to have its logo removed from the site.

Any suggestion on the part of Capital Access or its agents of a deeper relationship with Price is totally unfounded.

Vertikal Comment

It has been several years since something like this occurred in the UK powered access business. Most of us hoped that this sort of activity was a thing of the past, and of course as yet we do not really know the true extent of the situation.

Hopefully it will serve as a warning to manufacturers and others alike about whom they give credit to. Sadly it is likely to have negative repercussions on the funding ability of many small companies in our industry that are building up solid, honest businesses.

Hopefully this affair will prove to be not quite as bad as it looks, and prove to be a one-off.

It looks as though this is a case of two people out of their depth, who have panicked and walked out on their failing business after running up some serious debts