Trading Statement

Speedy Hire PLC
8 April 2002

                                                                    8 April 2002

                                SPEEDY HIRE Plc

                                 TRADING UPDATE


Speedy Hire is a leading provider of equipment hire services to UK contractors
and builders, industry, utilities and the public sector.  The Group is focused
primarily on tool hire, with complementary businesses specialising in portable
accommodation, surveying and power generation.



The Group has made good progress in the year ended 31 March 2002.  In November
we completed the disposal of our last remaining non-core business, in order to
focus on the growing tool hire market, and we have successfully expanded these
core operations through both greenfield depot openings and acquisitions.



Overall the markets remain solid and we are confident of achieving market
expectations for 2001/2002.



Trading

The trading climate has remained favourable, with high levels of activity in UK
construction underpinned by the Government's commitment to substantial
infrastructure investments.  Like-for-like sales for the year grew by 8%.This is
indicative of our strong market performance and wholly satisfactory given the
abnormal boost to last year's figures from the floods and foot and mouth crisis.




Business development

The acquisition of Jewson's 37 stand alone tool hire operations has further
consolidated the sector.  Whilst it is still early days, the depots are trading
in line with expectations at the time of purchase and the re-branding of the
depots is now complete.  We are particularly pleased with the response of our
new staff to the challenges of reaching the level of activity and profit of our
existing tool hire depots.  The aim for the coming year will be to invest in
equipment for these depots as turnover increases from our marketing and sales
effort.  The costs of integrating this business have been written off as
incurred and we would therefore expect that this acquisition will be marginally
dilutive for 2001/2002.  We are confident that eps will be enhanced in 2002/
2003.



Our greenfield opening programme has delivered 17 new depots this year of which
14 are tool depots and 3 are in the specialist operations.  The greenfield
programme will be limited in the coming year whilst the ex-Jewson depots are
being fully integrated.



Over the last 2 years the number of depots has increased by around 50% and
growth in turnover significantly in excess of this.  We have invested in
management systems and controls in the current year and we intend to increase
this rate of investment to support our future plans for growth.



Acquisition

We are pleased to announce that we have also acquired the business and certain
net assets of Chichester Plant Contractors Ltd, a subsidiary of the privately
owned Geoffrey Osborne Group which has interests in building, civil engineering
and rail, road, housing and property maintenance.  Geoffrey Osborne Group has
entered into a five year service supply agreement with Speedy for the provision
of tools and equipment, portable accommodation, storage, power generation,
compressed air supply and survey and measurement instrumentation.  This will
produce benefits for all of our divisions.



Date of results

The preliminary announcement of the Group's results for the year ended 31 March
is scheduled for Wednesday, 12 June 2002.



Chief Executive's comment

Speedy Hire Chief Executive John Brown commented:  'We now have a completely
focused business with real scale and strengths in our core target markets.  With
over 250 branches, we are well positioned to meet the needs of the major
contractors across the UK, and our latest acquisition opens up new opportunities
for us to develop our capabilities as an outsourced service provider'.



ENQUIRIES:
Speedy Hire Plc                                     Hudson Sandler

John Brown, Chief Executive                         Nick Lyon / Elisabeth Young

Neil O'Brien, Finance Director                      Tel:  [phone]

Tel:  [phone]





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