Plant and tool hire chain HSS has reported a pre-tax loss of over £30 million for the first half of 2017 as it continues to deliver a cost-cutting restructuring of the business.

For the 26-week period ended 1st July 2017 the group lost £30.1m before tax (2016 H1: £7.8m loss) on revenue down 3.4% to £160.5m (2016 H1: £166.2m).

The 2017 first half loss was almost as much as the £31.2m that HSS lost in the whole of 2015 and 2016 added together.

The drop in turnover was attributed to there being an additional week of trading in the first half of 2016 and to the closure of 68 underperforming branches over the last 12 months. HSS now has 250 shops and depots. Underlying revenues were broadly flat, adjusting for the 53rd week and the branch closures.

Net debt at 1st July 2017 was £230.6m, a reduction of £8.2m from 12 months earlier.

Steve Ashmore, chief executive officer, said: “While significant operational change was achieved during H1 17, both rental revenue growth and the cost base were temporarily impacted leading to reduced profitability.

“We are facing into these challenges by taking decisive action to reinvigorate rental revenue growth through the implementation of new sales initiatives and by rolling-out cost actions that will deliver annualised cost savings of £13m, a number of which are enabled by the recent investment in our centralised engineering and distribution capability.”

Looking ahead Ashmore said that the action had seen HSS return to profitability in June with revenue in growth for the first 8 weeks of the second half.

He added: “While the rate of recovery in our rental revenues has been positive, it has been materially slower than originally targeted leading to lower than expected profitability over this period.

“On this basis we expect second half adjusted EBITA profit to be in the range of £8m to £11m.”