Belfry Trucks buys Sparshatts Truck & Van

Commercial Motor
April 12, 2018


Belfry Trucks has acquired Sparshatts Truck & Van, the franchised Mercedes-Benz dealer for Kent, for an undisclosed sum.

Former Sparshatts director Andrew Sparshatt worked with accountants Burgess Hodgson to oversee the sale process to new management, including major shareholders brothers Steve and Paul Rooney. According to Steve Rooney, who has a sales and marketing background in the heavy machinery business, the new management team will invest in staff and facilities.

The new dealer principal said: “This acquisition marks the culmination of a long-held dream for Paul and I. It is also a business with great potential for growth and I’m confident that through modernisation and the introduction of new, more efficient processes, we’ll be able to exploit this to the full.”

Paul Rooney joined Sparshatts as a service advisor in 1982 and left in 1986 to drive trucks. He returned three years later and eventually became truck sales manager at the dealer.

“I have no hesitation in saying that we’re inheriting a great team of colleagues,” he said. “What they need now is the strategic direction and motivation that will be instrumental in taking this company forward into a new era. That’s exactly what we’re going to give them.”

The new ownership team includes financial director Peter Davies and chairman Sid Sadique, group MD of NRG Fleet Services and Riverside Truck Rental. Sparshatts, a founding member of the Mercedes-Benz dealer network, was formed in 1975 by Roger Sparshatt, who retired in 2000, and his business partner David Jones, who died last year.

The company employs 200 people at branches in Sittingbourne, Ashford, Dartford and Tonbridge, and reported a £76m turnover last year.

  • L-R: Peter Davies, Paul Rooney and Steve Rooney
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