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Name: T.O.M. Vehicle Rental
Industry/sector: Miscellaneous
Date founded: 1991
The boss: Jim Rafferty
Location: Scotland
Latest turnover: £98.5m
Three-year compound growth rate (%): 53.33
Latest EBITDA: £20m
Founded in Airdrie back in 1991 as an MOT station, T.O.M Vehicle Rental now has sites across Scotland in places including Aberdeen and Glasgow, but also England in Manchester and Nottingham. Further expansion is expected in 2015, with sites in Leicester and London on the way too.
The firm now has more than 500 employees and 9,000 vehicles. It isn’t just rentals that’s allowed the company to achieve a CAGR of 53.3 per cent and a turnover of more than £98m though – T.O.M. Vehicle Rental also supports contract hires and sells cars too.
Indeed, supporting customers with diverse options has allowed it to treble in size over the last few years.
Describing itself as a one-stop shop for everything through investment in staff, equipment, IT and infrastructure, T.O.M. Vehicle Rental is out to keep everything in-house to make the experience better for the customers.
With that in mind, founder and CEO Jim Rafferty runs the company alongside his family. Wife Angie, children James, Liam, Andrea and Eileen are already supporting the operation, while daughter Shauna is set to join once she has graduated from university.
“We build our business around the operational support of a customer’s vehicle and fleet of vehicles,” said Robert Stewart, group managing director, T.O.M Vehicle Rental.
“There are plenty of options for vehicle or trailer rental, but those providers narrow down as you start to review the service proposition and capability. That is our USP: we think differently about how we can provide optimum support to our customer by using our significant aftersales experience and ability.”
T.O.M Vehicle Rental started the year with an acquisition to aid its growth, buying Citroen dealer Alistair Fleming.
Rafferty, said: “Its reputation with customers seemed to be quite strong, and as a family business ourselves our reputation with customers and the service we deliver is what we pride ourselves on.
“It seemed to be a nice fit, and it also had some good territories we felt we could add value in and really push the business on in those areas.We’re quite happy – it’s a new adventure for our business moving into cars and retailing cars. We’re quite looking forward to getting on with the new side of it and proving what we can do there.”
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