Fleet vehicle hire business Prohire has fallen into administration. Following the appointment of EY-Parthenon professionals to oversee the process, the majority of its staff were made redundant.
Based in Stoke-on-Trent, Prohire was a vehicle rental and contract hire firm. Amid difficult trading conditions, reports note that the company struggled with liquidity challenges in recent years and, despite management exploring options to safeguard the business, it was unable to raise the funding required to continue trading.
In the year to March 31 2024, the company generated turnover of £52.8 million, up from £44.4 million the year earlier. However, its post-tax profit fell from approximately £1.2 million to a loss of around £132,000. Fixed assets at the time were valued at £43.4 million and current assets at £42.3 million, while net assets totalled approximately £12.6 million.
Prohire, which had a fleet of up to 3,400 vehicles, from cars to trailers and trucks, selected EY-Parthenon for its administration. Since then, almost 80 staff were made redundant – close to the entire workforce – which included 57 people working in Stoke-on-Trent.
A small number of employees have been retained in the company’s Fenton office, to help wind the business up. Timothy Vance and Samuel James Woodward of EY-Parthenon’s turnaround and restructuring strategy team will now look to sell off remaining assets for creditors.
The news sees Prohire become the latest in a growing list of companies to collapse after taking on private equity ownership. In 2018, NorthEdge Capital supported an MBO of Prohire, taking a majority stake in the firm and providing capital to broaden the sales function – alongside investing in the development of a ProVision technology platform at Prohire.