Dust-cart maker comes to market

TRINITY Holdings, more used to making vehicles that collect paper, will be issuing piles of its own next month when it comes to the stock market, writes John Shepherd.

The maker of Dennis dust-carts and fire engines is obtaining a full listing via a placing and a rarely used intermediaries offer. A maximum pounds 30m can be raised through an intermediaries offer, which allows sponsoring brokers to place shares with private clients.

Full flotation details have yet to be released, but sources say Trinity will carry an initial market value of about pounds 80m and will raise about pounds 25m. Directors, led by Geoff Hollyhead, chairman and chief executive, own 51 per cent and banks, mainly Citicorp and Bankers Trust, own the rest.

Mr Hollyhead is pushing ahead with the flotation, undeterred by the stock market's malaise. 'I have always been an eternal optimist. We have done well, and we have a lot of growth to finance.'

Trinity, bought from Hestair by its management for pounds 27.3m in 1989, made pounds 5.4m of operating profits in 1991/92 on pounds 82.1m of sales. Some pounds 12.6m of pounds 16m of senior debt from the buyout has been repaid. The rest will be erased by the flotation.

Dust-carts sell for pounds 70,000- pounds 100,000 and fire engines from pounds 80,000 to pounds 200,000 for those with Simon Snorkel turntable ladders.

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