THE DEFINITIVE TRUCKING SITE

Nov/Dec 2007

Rentrak Vehicle Recovery Services – one of South Africa’s premium companies dedicated to the recovery of stolen and hijacked vehicles – is back where it belongs in the centre of the hive of activity that is Rand Airport. Patrick O’Leary paid a visit to the company to check out its new pad and found Dave Renton, MD of Rentrak, a happy man. 
 

MD of Rentrak, Dave Renton (right) with response manager Dup Du Preez, in front of the dedicated Matrix recovery helicopter. The new offices are situated where the action is – and that’s where these guys love to be.

THERE’S A CERTAIN affinity between Dave Renton and FleetWatch that goes back to the launch issue of this magazine. In those days back in 1994, FleetWatch was heavily involved in the South African Vehicle Security Association (SATSA) which had an active committee whose members were dedicated to finding ways of stemming the rising tide of truck hijackings. 
 

A view of a part of Rentrak’s control room which provides a tracking and bureau service to clients.

Serving on this committee was a man by the name of Dave Renton who, at the time, headed up the recovery arm of XPS, a division of Rennies, and had been doing so since 1991 when the company decided to go big on recovering the vehicles it was losing to thieves and hijackers. 

The methods used were pioneering stuff where Renton applied tactics similar to an army-type fire-force operation using both ground and air reaction forces. In those days, tracking was just coming into its own and even Netstar, today one of the longest established vehicle tracking companies in the country, was not around. It came into being  in 1993 and, as a matter of interest, Renton and his crew werecontracted by Netstar to do the vehicle recovery side of the operations. 

It was ground-breaking work which became more and more important after 1994 when truck hijackings started shooting up. It was around this time that SATSA was formed with guys like Cargo Carriers’ loss control manager, Joe Pretorius serving on it. Renton’s on-the ground experience was invaluable and I recall him arriving at one meeting and saying to me: "Pat, you’re giving away all our advantages to the criminals." I was also at the time a member of the SATSA team. 

What had happened was that the vehicle tracking ‘boom’ had begun with a number of companies arriving on the market with what were considered then to be highly sophisticated tracking systems. I had written in one article in FleetWatch how the features of some systems were proving to be amazing. "You can even remotely switch on the tail-light flashes from a helicopter so as to identity the hijacked vehicle among other traffic," I had written. 

It was this that prompted Renton to pull me up on giving away their advantages. "We don’t want the criminals to know what we can do and you’re writing about it for all to see," was his gripe. I humbly accepted the ‘constructive criticism’ and stopped writing about the system features which gave the good guys the advantage over the bad guys. 

It was in those days too that the SATSA wrote a specification list of features required for tracking systems and Renton’s input – along with others - on this was invaluable. The list was needed in the market given the arrival of numerous new players professing to be all things to all people. And few of them were. The majority were fly-by-nights. Guidance was thus needed for operators in helping them make the right choices from the many system offerings. 

Meanwhile, back at the coal-face, Renton and his team continued honing their vehicle recovery skills against a new breed of hijacker who was sophisticated, armed and dangerous. "I remember spending hours in the air tracking vehicles in mist, fog and at night all over the country. We would think nothing of flying from Johannesburg to the then Transkei in pursuit of our clients’ vehicles. It was exhilarating but hair-raising stuff," he says. 

Operations continued along these lines until 1996 when a company called Datatrak entered the market and Renton formed a company called Rentrak going into partnership with Datatrak. Unfortunately, Datatrak was unable to mirror its successful UK operation and in 1998, closed its doors in South Africa. Renton had, during these three years, continued on contract with XPS but unfortunately had lost the Netstar contract in 1996 as they wanted exclusivity of recovery operations and the Datatrak arrangement did not allow for this. There were no bad vibes. The parting was based on a mere business decision. 

What helped cushion the blow of losing Netstar was the entry into the market of a company called Matrix Vehicle Tracking and Recovery which was started by Stefan Joss towards the end of 1995. It wasn’t long after Matrix opened its doors that Joss contracted Renton to conduct the recoveries until he got his own recovery operation up and running. 

The well known Digicore was another company which called on Renton to do its recoveries until they entered into a permanent arrangement with another recovery company. In addition to this, he was also recovering vehicles for the Super Group – a move that was to change the future of Rentrak for in 2001, Super Group bought a majority shareholding in Rentrak as a means of enhancing its security operations. To this day, Super Group retains that shareholding but leaves Renton to run the show. 

Without a home at Datatrak, Renton had set up offices in the Cargo Carriers building in Elandsfontein and I must admit, the quiet atmosphere of Cargo Carriers’ head-office just did not suit the operations. In 2005 a big break came when Matrix Vehicle Tracking again came on board contracting Rentrak to do its recoveries. 

"This was a massive breakthrough for the company and I immediately approached Henley Air to provide additional helicopters to compliment Matrix’s helicopter as I knew that with Matrix’s large client base, I would need extra eyes in the skies to provide a professional service," says Renton. Today, there are four helicopters dedicated to the Matrix contract. 

This arrangement finally led to the move of Rentrak to Rand Airport, a move which took place just over two months ago. After all the years of battling and struggle, Rentrak is now in the clear and back where it belongs doing the job it knows best. 

"Along with our other contracts, we now look after around 200 000 vehicles and have in place a national recovery capacity that works well. In addition, we also offer a bureau service to many clients looking after their vehicles not only from a security point but also from a distribution point. It is all in place." 

The fact that Matrix is now part of Telimatrix, which also owns Omnibridge and has just listed on the JSE, is surely a sign of even better things to come. And guess what? Datatrak UK is also in the Telimatrix stable. 

The circle has turned and this is good as Rentrak deserves a good future. Through all the ups and downs of the past, Renton and his team have remained dedicated to the protection of the assets of this industry - often putting their lives at risk in doing so. That contribution is reason enough for this company to have earned its place in the sun.