CL Tyres adds Southampton location en route to national coverage

In May, fast-growing industrial tyre business CL Tyres bought Manchester-based Fork Truck Tyres. Since then, the business has continued to grow. With the company continuing to expand at a rate of knots, Tyres & Accessories got in touch with director Steven Pye in order to find out how the integration is going and what’s happening next.

At each stage of an expansion plan, execution is key. And when expansion includes acquisition, integration is at the forefront of execution. So, how has the integration of Fork Truck Tyres gone? “Really well. The team have made the transition smooth and effortless. They are a fantastic addition to the CL Tyres group and we look forward to all working together”, Steve Pye explained.

Indeed, the integration of Fork Truck Tyres is said to have been a wholly positive development for the company: “we are now able to offer greater area coverage to our customers with the expansion. In addition to Manchester and Barnsley, we are also delighted to announce that we have also opened a depot in the Southampton region.”

Following the addition of the new Southampton site, CL Tyres now has locations across the Midlands, in Manchester, Barnsley, Hull and Washington covering the north and in Southampton in the south of the country. Based on previous performance, when Pye mentions “the addition of further locations in the near future” it won’t be long until we hear of the next opening.

The questions are: where can we expect the next locations to be and are there are any other acquisitions on the horizon? “There are several other key areas we are currently looking at…to make sure we can cover all our customers’ needs. But…we are not able to reveal these locations at this moment in time”, came the clear but understandably guarded reply.

Expansion at this speed and coverage indicate wider plans for national coverage, something CL Tyres representatives have been explicit about before. So how are those plans going? “The plans for national coverage and going well and with the latest depots added we are well on target.”

Turnover doubles following Fork Truck Tyres acquisition

Prior to the acquisition of Fork Truck Tyres, CL Tyres was already growing fast. As we reported back in May, during the first three years of business, company turnover grew ten-fold from £120,000 in year one to around £1.2 million by the time that full-year 2022 accounts were published in May 2023, just three years after foundation. Since turnover is a helpful way of measuring the scale of business, we asked how much bigger turnover is now than before the Fork Truck Tyre acquisition?

“With some minor adjustment to the processes that Fork Truck Tyre were using, we have almost doubled CL Tyres’s turnover”, Steve Pye explained. Moving forward, “the addition of Southampton [means turnover] will continue to grow with the addition of further locations in the near future.”

So, what does the FTT acquisition mean for product portfolio? “With the addition of these companies we are in a very strong place within the UK industrial tyre market and have several leading suppliers who provide us with top quality product from around the globe and were currently importing several containers per month to help supply the demand for fair priced quality products.”

“Were constantly having new suppliers looking to provide us with their products but until we have tested the product for several months, we don’t put these into the UK market as we like to know the products were offering our customers and we want to feel confident there fit for purpose.”

If all the specific examples aren’t clear enough, CL Tyres’s overall growth reflects the significant shifts that have taken place in the UK industrial tyre sector. Nevertheless, the new players in the market want to bring stability as well as change. As Steve Pye concluded: “The industrial tyre sector is going through massive changes and CL Tyres is embracing them. We have grown in four years from working from a container in a customer’s depot with two staff members, to currently seven depots and over 30 members of staff which we call the CL Tyres family. We Always aim to offer firstly a first-class service and advise, backed by quality products. We will continue to run as a family business and consider all colleagues as family.”