Bath-based specialist vehicle accident management group Redde has continued to feel the impact of Covid-19 as quieter roads have resulted in fewer prangs.
But its acquisitive parent group, whose interests span the vehicle hire, repair and salvage markets, said it was bouncing back strongly from the pandemic.
Redde, formerly known as Helphire and an innovator in accident management, merged with light commercial vehicle hire business Northgate in February to form Redde Northgate.
The enlarged group provides mobility and automotive services to a wide range of businesses and customers spanning the vehicle life cycle across vehicle supply, service, maintenance, repair, recovery, accident and incident management and disposal through sale or salvage.
It has an extensive network and diversified fleet of more than 110,000 owned vehicles and 400,000-plus managed vehicles in more than 100 branches across the UK, Ireland and Spain.
The group this week said it had chalked up pre-tax profits of £25.9m for the half year to the end of October, a rise of 4.3% on the same period last year. Revenues accelerated by 55.4% to £556m.
During the period the group snapped up 77 bodyshop sites from failed accident repair services firm Nationwide, along with a fleet of vehicles and 2,300 of its staff.
Redde Northgate said the integration of the merged businesses had delivered strong cost savings while bringing Nationwide’s operations into the group had been accelerated to take advantage of the market recovery.
Building on Redde’s expertise, an accident and incident management product was launched to Northgate customers during the period with a good early response. The group said was confident the exercise would be a source of revenue growth.
CEO Martin Ward said: “We have continued to make excellent progress in delivering on our strategy to become the leading integrated mobility solutions provider.
“Our integration plan has now delivered synergies and permanent cost savings of £15.9m run rate savings to date and we fully expect to reach the increased targets we set out of £19m in year two.
“I have been immensely proud of the way the team has stepped up to ensure we can operate as effectively as possible and deliver our services during these difficult times.
“We can clearly see the impact of Covid-19 in this set of results, particularly in Redde where accident volumes were depressed in the first quarter. However, these have significant potential to increase when road traffic volumes and incidents revert back closer to historic norms.
“Meanwhile, the buoyancy in used vehicle markets, particularly in the UK, has led to higher disposal profits, and the Northgate businesses have also both benefitted from an increase in vehicles on hire since year-end such that it is now above pre-Covid levels.
“Recent regional lockdowns and the second national lockdown in the UK have highlighted the need for agility and we continue to keep cost and cash controls in place in order to monitor and manage the business closely.”
He said the group did not expect the impact of the recent restrictions to be as severe as the original national lockdowns in April and May.
Measures taken by the group to combat the impact of Covid-19 included furloughing employees, voluntary pay reductions for board directors and senior leadership positions and cost control measures including freezing of recruitment and pay reviews.
