Charles Wilson buys M&J
24 June 2022
Charles Wilson Engineers has acquired M&J Hire Centres, which trades from 12 locations and brings the construction plant and tool hirer’s depot network to more than 30, with over 400 staff and upwards of £200 million in equipment assets.
“We will be pushing towards £90 million in year one and the target will be more than £100 million in revenues in year two,” said Charles Wilson’s chief executive David Gallagher in a statement on the company’s website.
Charles Wilson, through its CW Plant Hire, CW Instant Hire, CW Instant Power and CW Access Hire divisions, continues to expand, with the recent acquisition of a second site in Nottingham doubling the firm’s capacity in the city. Mr Gallagher says that further growth is already planned across the country.
“We have recently expanded the size of our depot in Nottingham and I’ve got several acquisition targets on the horizon.” said Mr Gallagher.
“By bringing together Charles Wilson with M&J Hire Centres, this will give us the opportunity, through the mix and size of the depots, to reconfigure our fleet to better serve our customers, with different products available from various locations. We have ongoing plans to invest around £50 million a year over the next three years on plant and machinery.”
CW’s Birmingham depot specialises in generator and access platform hire, while the focus in Nottingham is on site dumpers, excavators and mini excavators.
“Any depot can take an order from any location. We will say yes to the customer and then organise the equipment,” said Mr Gallagher. “We want to provide a local service, on a national basis.”
He adds that, with continued expansion very much a focus of the future, the business is keen to see further growth in its apprenticeship programme, which this year aims to take on a record number of apprentices and trainees.
Charles Wilson Engineers was formed in 1979 in Harpenden by Charles Gallagher and David Wilson. M&J Hire also started trading in Hertfordshire, in 1955, with the involvement of the Gallagher family. As the two companies developed, M&J formed a close cooperation with the family-owned Irish house builder Abbey Homes, while Charles Wilson was more closely associated with Matthew Homes in England.
With both of these house-building businesses now back under family ownership, the time is seen as right to bring together CW Plant Hire and M&J Hire Centres, to realise the many potential savings within these two successful plant and tool businesses and to push ahead with further expansion plans, Mr Gallagher added.
“We have one of the largest telescopic handler fleets in the country and have recently been building the number of Roto machines. We will continue to expand the fleet in many equipment sectors, to meet the rapidly changing needs of our customers.”
Charles Wilson Engineers runs a training centre for forklift, telehandler and aerial work platform operators at its Hayes depot to the west of London. “We will be looking at the possibility of additional training centres around the country as we continue to expand,” said Mr Gallagher.
At a time of challenge and uncertainty in some quarters, this talk of expansion is surely a very positive sign.
