Forklift News - New directors in management buyout plan expansion for MSM/DRH

(L to R) Christine Waring, Kevin Ratcliffe, Alan Barnes, Dean Tandy and Danielle Oliver.

Mitsubishi Forklift Trucks dealer MSM/DRH Ltd is expanding its business after receiving a funding package from the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

The Worcestershire-based dealer underwent a management change last December when four long-term employees took ownership of the company.

Managing director Alan Barnes says the management team wants to take the company to a "whole new level".

"To do this, we needed to find a financial partner who could share our vision for the company," Barnes says. "We are pleased to have concluded our negotiations with RBS."

MSM/DRH serves the Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire counties. It has been a Mitsubishi forklift dealer since 1998, offering more than 100 forklift models, including Ausa rough-terrain forklifts, utility vehicles and dumpers and JCB telescopic forklifts.

The four new directors, Alan Barnes (managing director), Christine Waring (finance director), Kevin Ratcliffe (service director - tail lift) and Dean Tandy (service director - forklift), who bought the business from Dud Delaney and Martha Francis, plan to maximise the company’s potential.

Key to the company’s strategy is boosting its engineering and servicing staff and expanding its sales operation into new markets, Barnes says.

Danielle Oliver, RBS commercial banking manager, says the bank has put together a funding package that will grow with MSM/DRH’s needs over the next few years.

"This is an exciting time for Alan and his fellow directors who have demonstrated to us a clear process for how they want to take the company forward," she says.

Terry Foreman, general manager of Mitsubishi Forklift Trucks UK, says Mitsubishi will give the dealer its full support.

Details of the funding package were not disclosed.

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