Plant Hire Giant’s Profits Rise Des­pite Tough Con­di­tions

The boss of Perth­shire plant hire firm Mor­ris Leslie is plead­ing for sta­bil­ity from gov­ern­ments to give the con­struc­tion sec­tor more con­fid­ence.

Based at West Kin­fauns, the group is one of the largest plant hire firms in Bri­tain. It also has a prop­erty port­fo­lio, runs auc­tions and a hol­i­day lodge devel­op­ment.

Newly filed accounts for Mor­ris Leslie Hold­ings Ltd show a small increase in rev­enue to £76.3 mil­lion for the year end­ing April 30 2025, up from £73.1m in the 2024 fin­an­cial year.

Pre-tax profits increased from £2.6m to £5.7m, although £3.7m of this rise can be attrib­uted to prop­erty revalu­ations.

Group oper­a­tions dir­ector Gra­ham Ogilvie said polit­ical uncer­tainty meant delays on invest­ment decisions.

He said: “Mar­ket con­di­tions in the UK remain sub­dued – there’s a lack of con­fid­ence at the moment.

“Con­struc­tion has been and always will be one of the big drivers in grow­ing the eco­nomy in the UK.

“We need sta­bil­ity in policies so that people can make invest­ment decisions.

“In the lead-up to the budget, you get all the gren­ades going off about all the things that could hap­pen, and then noth­ing happened.

“But put­ting these mes­sages out there makes people nervous and puts people off mak­ing invest­ments.

“The impact of the later budget means a lot of invest­ment decisions won’t be made until the start of 2026.

“There’s cer­tainly no evid­ence at the moment that Labour’s pledge to build 1.5 mil­lion new homes in Eng­land before 2030 will be delivered.”

Mr Ogilvie said the sub­dued con­struc­tion activ­ity has been seen over the world.

This impacts the Perth­shire firm as it is con­tinu­ally refresh­ing its fleet with an arm of the busi­ness selling its older equip­ment all over the world.

However, the oper­a­tions dir­ector said there were more signs of recov­ery in Europe, com­pared to the UK.

The lower activ­ity meant there was a smal­ler cap­ital invest­ment in new equip­ment in the fin­an­cial year.

Mor­ris Leslie inves­ted £45.3m com­pared to £75.4m the pre­vi­ous year.

He said: “We scaled back our cap­ital expendit­ure by a sub­stan­tial amount to reflect the mar­ket con­di­tions.

“Because demand for the used equip­ment had eased glob­ally, we brought in less.

“The cur­rent year looks like being another flat year.

“Like a lot of busi­nesses, we are hav­ing to work all harder at a time of rising cost bases.”

Des­pite the tough cli­mate, Mor­ris Leslie is con­tinu­ally look­ing at ways to expand the busi­ness. It acquired Birm­ing­ham-­based VHS Plant Hire last year.

Mr Ogilvie added: “We’re con­tinu­ally look­ing for oppor­tun­it­ies to either expand into new areas of the UK where we don’t have rep­res­ent­a­tion, or where we can obvi­ously pur­chase a busi­ness and then oper­ate it from our exist­ing depot struc­tures.”