QTS, the rail maintenance business Alan McLeish started with a £300 loan and sold for £80 million, has helped its new owner enjoy a strong first half.
Renew Holdings said the integration of Lanarkshire-based QTS has gone extremely well following the acquisition of the business in May.
QTS has performed in line with expectations leaving Leeds-based Renew’s engineering division on track to beat budget.
“We expect to report further growth in our Engineering Services order book, underpinned by our extensive portfolio of long-term frameworks contracts,” said Renew.
The acquisition of QTS allowed Renew to ramp up its presence in the specialised rail maintenance market, in which operators provide services on long term contracts.
The cash deal cemented Mr McLeish’s standing as one of Scotland’s most successful entrepreneurs.
After leaving school with no qualifications, Mr McLeish worked in forestry to support his young family.
He started QTS as Quality Tree Surgeons in 1991 with £300 borrowed from his mum to buy a chainsaw.
Mr McLeish won his first contract from the old British Rail. QTS progressed from helping operators to keep vegetation under control into providing a range of support services across the UK.
At the time of the deal with Renew, Mr McLeish said the transaction would provide opportunities for QTS to expand its market share. He expected the firm to benefit from synergies created by working with Renew’s operations in other highly regulated sectors.
A spokesperson for Renew said the company retained all members of the QTS management team and employees following the deal and had no intention of making changes for the foreseeable future.
Renew provides support services on assets ranging from nuclear energy plants to luxury housing blocks
The Aim-listed group said it is in line to record results for the year to September 30 in line with market expectations with improvement in operating profit and margin
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here