Brighouse-based ambulance manufacturer returns to profit under Venari Group ownership

O&H Vehicle Technology has posted profitable results for the first time since 2017, 18-months after its acquisition by Venari Group.

In the year ending February 2021, O&H Vehicle Technology delivered revenues of more than £27m, and recorded £1.4m of profit before tax.

At the start of 2019, the former O&H owners drafted in Oliver North, as its new managing director.

In August 2019, Mr North led a management buyout (MBO) of O&H alongside Ken Davy, and provided significant investment into product development and machinery.

O&H managing director and Venari Group CEO, Oliver North, said: “I couldn’t be more thrilled to announce O&H’s return to full health after a relentless few years of significant improvement. But as the UK’s oldest and biggest ambulance manufacturer, and at a time when job creation and improvements in British manufacturing are needed more than ever – it is a job which has proven to be worth fighting for.

In conjunction with the MBO, Venari Group was established as the new parent company of OHVT to provide a new 60,000 sq ft headquarters in Brighouse in addition to OHVT’s 64,000 sq ft production facility.

"We can now present the best case in decades to our NHS as to why we do not need to import ambulances.”

Group finance director, James Houston, added: “O&H Vehicle Technology’s figures now show that we’re officially, once again, the largest ambulance manufacturer in the UK, and it is a position which all of us at the company will strive to consolidate and build upon in the years ahead.”

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