This article is more than 1 year old

Management buyout at Hamilton Rentals AGAIN

'We love being sold and bought back, and sold and bought back and...'

Hamilton Rentals is again a privately owned channel biz after the management team led a buy-out from previous proprietor Xchange Technology Group.

The leasing outfit was consumed by Compel in 1996, which was itself flogged to 2e2 in 2007, before Hamilton top brass performed an MBO in 2008 and sold up to XTG in 2011.

So far so good?

Hamilton chairman John Unsworth, said the business was again in control of its destiny with private backers, him among them, willing to invest in growth initiatives.

He said XTG was backed by the Royal Bank of Canada's US operations that was sold to PNC Financial Services in 2011, but PNC had "no appetite" to bank roll growth plans

XTG then refinanced with asset based loans firm Callidus Corporation but they did "not have the enthusiasm to invest more substantially to allow us to grow," said Unsworth.

"We decided that Hamilton would be better served buying the company back [from XTG] and getting our own finance in place," he told The Channel.

The independent business will look for small acquisitions in adjacent services or for a similar outfit in another geography.

Unsworth said the standard rental market - managing loan and seed pool units - was not immune to the downturn but was "recession resistant".

"Companies may have small IT spends but when there are capital restrictions they look at rentals to move their IT estate forward."

In a statement, XTG boss Jeff McFarlane, said it would maintain a "strategic relationship" with its former UK colony but he was not available to comment further at the time of writing.

In the last available numbers for Hamilton Rentals at Companies House, sales for the year to 31 December 2011 fell to £18.27m from £21.8m in 2011 but operating losses narrowed to £83,000 from £3.5m. ®

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