Company history
Rotrex Winches boasts a 40-year pedigree as the UK’s leading provider of winches and winch expertise.
Rotrex is a UK-based business providing a wide range of winch hire, winch sales, winch service and winch support solutions as well as maintenance, inspection, testing, refurbishment and installation of high level access and fall protection equipment. Rotrex originally developed its business and market reputation as Lifting Gear Hire Ltd which was founded in 1970 in Atherton, near Manchester.
Steady growth to become the market leader
Over 30 years, LGH grew organically and by acquisition to be the largest lifting gear and winching plant hire company in the UK, with successful overseas operations in the USA, Netherlands and Germany.
A time of acquisition
In the early 1990s, LGH became LGH Group plc and acquired NIM Winches, based in Alfreton, Derbyshire. This acquisition greatly strengthened the group’s winch capacity and expertise, being complementary to the lifting gear hire business. Later in the 1990s, LGH acquired a suspended access maintenance business called Kobi Maintenance.
Demerger to provide clearer management and better market focus
In 2005 a demerger took place, resulting in two separate companies in the UK – Lifting Gear Hire Ltd (comprising the 38 Lifting Gear Hire branches, along with LGH Training and LGH Megalift) and LGH Group plc (comprising LGH Winches, LGH OnSite and LGH Rigging).
Lifting Gear Hire Ltd was sold to Speedy Hire plc in October 2006, and now operates as Speedy Lifting.
Becoming Rotrex
In 2007, to avoid confusion with the similarly named businesses, LGH Group plc was renamed Rotrex Group Ltd, LGH Winches became Rotrex Winches, LGH OnSite became Rotrex OnSite, and LGH Rigging now trades as Rigging Services Direct Ltd under separate ownership.
Rotrex Group Ltd is still owned by the founders of Lifting Gear Hire, as are LGH operations overseas inthe USA, Netherlands and Germany.
These major changes in the structure of the business have resulted in a smaller but stronger and more focused operation that allows us to concentrate better on our two main areas of expertise, winches and high-level access equipment.