Our 2024 Review From Adrian Crane

As the year draws to a close, I’d like to provide my annual update but firstly a thank you to all staff for  their continued support and hard work throughout 2024. A positive year that has seen Classic Lifts  continue to grow and evolve.  

Whilst we have generally had organic growth a large part of our expansion has been the acquisitions  we have completed and successfully integrated into our national organisation. Our approach to  acquisitions remains service focused, and I’d like to mention additional thanks to Ben Wright and  Jenny Larkin for leading the integration of Kent Lifts into our London Service and Bullet Lifts into our  Midlands service operations respectively. The other 2024 lift acquisition  (Unique Lifts) has been acquired by andwis and remains separate from Classic Lifts operating as a  sister company. 

We  are now part of a group of companies that employs around 1500 people. That’s doubled in size to this  time last year. 

Classic Lifts’ organic growth has continued in our seven regional branches with our service  department leading the way in terms of profitability. Although this remains particularly challenging  due to the highly competitive nature of the service market and also the type of new lift and major  mod work that we undertake, with lift replacements in existing/occupied buildings becoming our  core market. The complexities of the type of major project work we do is a credit to our technical  ability but sometimes means our commercial elements and profitability in that department struggles.  

Although the on-site delivery of our major projects levelled out in 2024 when compared with 2023, the order intake increased so we have a healthy order book for onsite work in 2025. However, with  significant projects such as Alpha Tower in Birmingham, Hilton Hotel in Manchester and Houses of  Parliament in London I expect the technical and commercial challenges to continue. 

Speaking of technical challenges, a review of 2024 must mention SimPRO. This was a major milestone to successfully implement into our service business that has taken most of the year and I’d like to call  out and thank Stevie Walters and Dane Batty who have been instrumental in getting our new system  in place. The next phase of this will include some automation and system reporting that will continue  to help us grow. Investment in our systems, processes and people are the fundamentals of Classic Lifts and this will continue. It’s always pleasing to see the large number of apprentices that we have  joining us, both as lift engineers and business admin. As I’ve said many times previously; A Company’s  strength is its people so thank you to you all for your continued support.

Technical and commercial challenges aside it’s the continued hard work of our people that has  enabled our continued overall growth and strengthening of our position in the UK lift market. In  terms of size, we are well inside the top ten lift companies in the UK. Not bad when the top four  places are taken by the multi-nationals and there are over 300 other lift companies in operation. The  table below provides a summary of some key measures and our overall company performance in  2024 – our 34^th year in business. Please note the increase in employee numbers is predominantly  from the incoming people from Bullet & Kent Lifts and the figures include the results from Classic Lifts  and Kent Lifts combined but do not include Unique Lifts.

As you can see from the figures above the company performance was good in 2024 and I re-iterate  my thanks to all our staff for their continued support and good work.  

What can we look forward to in 2025? 

Our investments will continue and despite the highly competitive environment we anticipate further  growth for Classic in 2025 along with further acquisitions supported by additional investments from  andwis and HIG Capital. We will remain active in the major projects market although our service side  will grow faster due to the system efficiencies of SimPRO and service biased companies being the  targets of our acquisition plans. As previously mentioned, our turnover split between projects and service 4 years ago was 60/40 with projects being the larger. At the end of 2024 it’s now 54/46 in  service favour and with the continued growth we anticipate it becoming 60/40 weighted towards  service during 2025.  

To facilitate the continued growth and scalability of Classic Lifts we will be re-organising some of our  senior management team and will have directors in charge of the individual disciplines of service and  projects. These will be tailored to suit the regional differences between London and the rest of the  country and the people leading the service/projects departments will continue to report directly to  me. The other Regional Directors continue in their roles and as leaders of their branch with a  localised focus and there will be more information announced early in the new year.  

The andwis group will continue to grow and the interactions between the group companies will  increase as we develop items like shared central services, procurement initiatives or cross sell  between the businesses. 

Business is a team “game” of course and each member of staff plays an important part in making Classic  successful. Our Installations and Service contracts represent the lifeblood of the company, and I can’t  emphasise enough how important it is that we deliver these well and continue building good  relationships with our customers. How we carry out our  core on site work of servicing, repairing, installing and testing lifts, along with how we present  ourselves really makes all the difference. 

• Do the job well, do it safely 
• Build a good relationship with the customer 
• Keep the customer informed. Explain the problem or show them if suitable 
• Provide the correct information to your manager
• Take ownership of a problem or task and see it through to completion
• Present Classic Lifts in a professional manner 

In 2025 we will continually improve our employee skill and knowledge levels, develop our customer  relationships to allow the workflow to continue and of course to work safely. 

Our Risk Assessments and Method Statements (RAMS) are continually reviewed but are only as good  as the people who do the work. I encourage staff to read their RAMS, feedback any detail that they think needs improvement and most importantly, work safe. 

Thanks again to all our staff for their contribution in 2024, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Adrian Crane
Managing Director