bought a few of these a week or two ahead of their Interims - have moved up ever since :-)) but believe there is still some way to go yet - currently 31/33p they go xd on the 26th feb.

I see capital group are still adding - another 2.7 million shares - making 20 million in total or 6.15%



ains

:27pm (UK)
Ashtead Wins Legal Battle

By Ben Griffiths, City Staff, PA News


Equipment hire firm Ashtead today said its US subsidiary Sunbelt Rentals had won damages worth 15 million US dollars (9.3m) following a court ruling in North Carolina.

The Leatherhead, Surrey-based firm said the business court had made the ruling against Head & Engquist Equipment (H&E), a competitor in the rental of aerial work platforms and certain members of its staff.

Sunbelt was awarded the cash under the unfair trade practices act and was also invited to petition the court for recovery of its legal fees.

The events leading to the litigation date back to shortly before Sunbelts June 2000 acquisition of BET USA where H&E and the individual defendants executed a plan to develop H&Es aerial work platform rental business.

Sunbelt claimed H&E had poached more than 100 staff from BET USA subsidiary BPS, including two of its regional managers, six branch managers and a significant number of branch staff.

These staff were then used to set up competing aerial work platform rental shops in seven major markets served by the BPS division of BET USA.

The defendants have the right to appeal the courts decision.

Ashtead has also been investigating unrelated accounting problems at the Sunbelt division which has seen a senior member of its financial staff suspended after costs appeared to have been understated by 5 million.

No news of the investigation, which is in its early stages, was provided today. Shares rose 10% to 8.5p a 0.75p gain.
s

US seems to like the news ..... up over 19% now on volume of 4.7 million

More big buys going through and over 7 million traded now - up 25.81% and zooming up the all share leader board

looks like a few shorters are having to close - margin calls and all that :-))

Now up 35.48% on the day



ains

Slipped back a little before close .... no surprise there with such a massive move northwards .... good press coverage today and we are on the move north again ....




ains

Heading the all share risers for 2nd day running @ plus 23% or so

dipping today - time for another go soon

Capital Group have added 3 million shares and now have 19 million or 5.828%



ains

Anyone here following Ashtead?

macinvest,

This has been a dog of a share since a BUY recommendation in Shares Mag back in Dec00 @ 135p. Thankfully I only bought a small Qty at the time so held on to them and have since added at 15.9p last June thinking they were about to recover and now pleased to see my overall holding is in profit. AHT share price seems to be recovering well and if growth in Building & Construction sectors in UK & USA continues to pick up then so to will Ashtead.

Ashtead's share price has consistently risen in the last 5days and up today another 7.2%. Could be now in a long upward recovery trend. The share price is now up 88.14% in the last 27 days.

IMO if the share price breaks through 30p (Mid)perhaps we will see the it back upto 50-70p range.

I was watching it all day for it to break that formidable 30p mark, currently sitting on a healthy profit but feel it was trying hard to break through as the buy orders went in and the spread narrowed, no luck today. Still holding in anticipation of it breaking te resistance at the next push. Saw the 1m buy @ 30p at close of business ??

Not such a bad day as I was lucky as sold Peterhouse Group this morning at the peak before it dropped.

Minx

Beware all investors, you know the history behind this company, management still in their jobs that nearly bought it to its knee's and they stll run the company. A fundamental for a long term investment is a strong management team, not something remotely applicable to ashtead unfortunately! You have been warned.

ehall, good note of caution with the AHT's management track record but at least they are addressing their previous short comings.

Share price has now broken through 30p with mid @ 32.25. It will be interesting how much further this will go.

There doesn't seem to be many followers on this board for AHT but this is turning out to be an excellent recovery stock after it has been through restructuring its finances, overcoming accounting irregularities and getting rid of 5 non-core businesses. Institutions that had previously reduced or sold their share holdings are now buying back in volume.

AHT's subsidiary Sunbelt Rentals are due $18Mln through winning a High Court action against H&E a competitor that had been poaching key staff and business. Although there is an appeal by H&E against the claim, the concensus is they are unlikely to win and cannot afford to settle so a strong posiblility Sunbelt will just buy H&E very cheap and thus will be effectively removing competition and gaining a significant increase in their share of business in the US market.

Now that AHT's share price has reached and broken through resistance levels of 32p, (prior to reported account irregularities in MAR03) IMO this now becomes the new support and the share should power up to test resistance perhaps to 50 - 55p before any retracement. In the mid - long term, providing the US economy continues to recover and the $ strengthens against the share price could be seen back up to 175p.

As always this is only my thoughts so DYOR but could be worth a buy and Multi-tex broker concensus is "Outperform".