Finning International took £84m dividends out of Hewden Stuart last year as the Canadian group sold off big chunks of the plant hire specialist ahead of the recent decision to close its fromer head office in Lanarkshire.

Finning International took £84m dividends out of Hewden Stuart last year as the Canadian group sold off big chunks of the plant hire specialist ahead of the recent decision to close its fromer head office in Lanarkshire.

Accounts for Hewden Stuart for 2007 show that Finning used the bulk of the £115m proceeds of the sale of the company's tool hire unit to Speedy Hire to fund a dramatic increase in the amounts it withdrew from the firm. For many years this was a mainstay of corporate Scotland.

In the preceding year, Finning received dividends of just £2.5m from Hewden, as the firm continued to grapple with the effects of a change in the competitive environment following the £320m purchase of the then stock market-listed group in 2000.

The consequences of this were brought home forcefully in 2003, when pre-tax profits plunged from £40.4m to £13.8m after European equipment manufacturers flooded the hire market with surplus production.

The sale of the tool hire unit, which employed 1200 staff, in July, followed by the disposal of a smaller unit specialising in hoist access in December to HTC Plant, came after Finning decided to focus Hewden on the heavier end of the plant hire business.

This was seen as a better fit with the Caterpillar earth mover business owned by Vancouver-based Finning.

In the latest stage of the rationalisation process, in March, Finning announced plans to close the former Hewden Stuart HQ in Uddingston, where around 80 staff work in functions like accounting.

The company said the move would result in the loss of around 27 posts and could result in redundancies.

Yesterday, a spokesman said the company had completed a statutory consultation period. However, it is still trying to establish how many employees would be prepared to relocate to Hewden's administrative centre in Manchester or could be used in other parts of Finning's UK operations.

The company has 102 depots around the UK.

The spokesman said the Udddingston office would remain open until the end of the year.

The latest accounts for Hewden Stuart suggest Finning is still waiting for the benefits of the reform process to impact on the bottom line.

While pre-tax profits jumped from £25m to £59.8m the improvement was due to a £46.9m accounting gain on the sale of the tools unit.

Operating profits on continuing operations fell by 29% to £11.6m. Turnover from continuing operations increased from £193m to £204m.

In their report to the accounts, the directors said significant effort had gone into the sale of the tool hire business and the introduction of new IT systems.

They believe these combined with the decision to focus on a narrower range of services will allow Hewden Stuart to boost utilisation rates and improve profitability.

In the latest year the boardroom pay bill increased by 5%, to £742,477.

The highest-paid director, assumed to be Brian Sherlock, the senior Hewden Stuart executive, received emoluments of £210,909, down from £449,708.