HSS Hire Group has disposed of its Irish subsidiary Laois Hire Services, to Briggs Equipment for a cash consideration of €11.2m.

Founded in 1989, Laois Hire Services specialises in the sale and hire of small plant equipment. The company was acquired by HSS in 2005, and in June 2020 had total gross assets of €10.6m and pre-tax profit of €1.8m for 2019.

Among its high-profile projects are the M50, M7 and M8 motorways, N9, Dublin Airport Terminal 2, Monasterevin Bypass and Intel.

Briggs Equipment is the Irish distributor for the Hyster range of forklift trucks and other materials handling equipment. Briggs has two sites in Ireland, in Lisburn and Dublin — the newer site, with operations running from there since 2018.

The two companies have also made a commercial agreement for the cross-hire of equipment to ensure the broadest possible distribution of, and customer access to, existing fleets.

In Association with

Briggs was advised by law firm Dillon Eustace, whose team was led by Philip Lea (pictured), partner within the corporate M&A team.