City File: Hire value

TLS Range is one of the few laggards in the otherwise buoyant vehicle hire and leasing sector. After being floated in the heady days of 1989, TLS mopped up a number of businesses and their depots, - just in time to suffer soaring interest rates and a recession which hit its customers.

Yet over the past year a number of canny institutional investors have built up substantial holdings, encouraged by a complete revamp of the board and management, and by an encouraging statement from the chairman with the results in April.

The shares are still bumping along at 16p, 4p above their all- time low of 12p reached earlier this year and a fraction of their 60p flotation price. Now that TLS has a grip on costs (it in effect maintained turnover while cutting its fleet more than a tenth) the shares look a snip.