If you have been to your local B&Q in recent months, you may have spotted a new addition: Speedy Hire, the tool and equipment firm, has installed concessions in the DIY retailer.
Branching out into stores to sell direct to consumers is a departure from Speedy Hire’s core business of supplying industrial equipment to contractors and builders such as Morgan Sindall, Costain and Balfour Beatty. It has 200 depots across the UK that promise to supply its 350 most popular items within four hours.
Since 2015, Speedy Hire has been in turnaround mode after two volatile years during which it lost its chief executive, issued a string of profit warnings and endured a row with activist investor Toscafund over its board.
Today, it is led
