Red Driving School gears up for acquisitions as demand fuels sales acceleration

High demand for lessons helped turnover grow at the group behind Red Driving School as it eyes making new acquisitions in the coming year.

The Yorkshire-headquartered company has posted a turnover of £15.9m for the year to July 23, 2023, up from £13.8m.

However, the firm’s pre-tax profits were cut from £670,677 to £204,564 over the same period, according to newly-filed accounts with Companies House.

Red Driving School said the rise in demand resulted in a record level of franchisee partners for the group by the end of the financial year.

High demand boosts sign ups

A statement signed off by the board said: “Demand for driving lessons throughout the year remained extremely high ensuring our instructors diaries were in most part fully booked for many weeks ahead.

“This level of demand ensured that the school continued to grow and ended the year with a record level of franchisee partners.

“Instructor training also continued to see high levels of demand for training courses with sales once again hitting record levels.

“The impact of this ongoing demand is clear to see in the growth noted above.

“The corporate business had a challenging year but spent much of it developing and introducing a new IT system which is expected to allow it to compete more effectively in competitive tender processes, improve its offering to current customers and grow its customer base ultimately leading to improved margins.”

Red Driving School eyes acquisitions

On its future, Red Driving School added: “The directors remain focused on continuing to build the core business of the group, capitalising on the strong levels of demand and sales for both instructor training courses and driving lessons to grow the franchisee base of the driving school and increase its overall market share.

“The directors remain keen to identify and pursue acquisition opportunities within the wider driver training sector, an approach which continues to align with the overall business objective of being the leading provider of services to the driving tuition industry within the UK”.

The company behind Red Driving School is backed by private equity firms Trimountain Partners, Ashridge Capital and funds managed by investment firm Downing.

David Sherratt, founder and CEO of Ashridge Capital, also holds a stake.