Steve Ashmore, chief executive officer, said the increased loss from an £8m loss at the same time a year ago, reflected weaker revenue performance, together with increased cost of sales and £13m of exceptional costs.

In the first-half, HSS closed 50 poorly performing depots in its 250 network of centres at a cost of £5m. HSS also reprofiled its stock as part of a programme to deliver annualised cost-savings of £13m.

He added: “While significant operational change was achieved during H1 17, both rental revenue growth and the cost base were temporarily impacted leading to reduced profitability. 

“We are facing into these challenges by taking decisive action to reinvigorate rental revenue growth through the implementation of new sales initiatives and by rolling-out cost actions that will deliver annualised cost savings of £13m, a number of which are enabled by the recent investment in our centralised engineering and distribution capability.”

Looking ahead Ashmore said that the action had seen HSS return to profitability in June with revenue in growth for the first 8 weeks of the second half.

“While the rate of recovery in our rental revenues has been positive, it has been materially slower than originally targeted leading to lower than expected profitability over this period.

“On this basis we expect second half adjusted EBITA profit to be in the range of £8m to £11m.”