United Rentals posted, on a pro-forma basis, $4.664 billion in total revenue for the full year of 2012, compared with $4.133 billion for 2011, a 12.8-percent jump. Full-year equipment rental revenue increased 13.2 percent on a pro-forma basis, while Q4 rental revenue jumped 8.7 percent year over year.
Full year actual total revenue totaled $4.117 billion, with rental revenue totaling $3.455 billion.
On a pro-forma basis — which assumes the combination of United Rentals and RSC results for all periods of 2011 and 2012 — for the fourth quarter of 2012, adjusted EBITDA was $553 million, with adjusted EBITDA margin of 44.3 percent, an increase of $104 million and 580 basis points, respectively, compared to 2011. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA was $1.988 billion and adjusted EBITDA margin was 42.6 percent, an increase of $494 million and 650 basis points. Rental rates jumped 6.9 percent.
For the fourth quarter, time utilization decreased 90 basis points year over year to 68.7 percent, while full-year time utilization dropped 30 basis points to 67.5 percent.
United Rentals realized cost synergies of $42 million in the fourth quarter and $104 million for the full year, and reaffirmed its fully developed goal of $230 million to $250 million on a run-rate basis.
United expects total revenue to reach a range of $4.9 billion to $5.1 billion in 2013, with adjusted EBITDA in a range of $2.25 billion to $2.35 billion. The company expects to raise rental rates about 4.5 percent year over year in 2013. It projects net rental capital expenditures of about $1.05 billion, after gross purchases of approximately $1.5 billion. It also expects full-year free cash flow to range between $400 million to $500 million.
“Our strong performance in 2012 continued in the fourth quarter as we delivered solid growth, robust margins and exceptional flow-through from our revenue streams,” said United Rentals CEO Michael Kneeland. “The integration with RSC has been very successful, and while it’s not complete, we can now shift our focus to driving improvements across the entire business. Despite the intensity of integration, we’ve paid consistent attention to the fundaments of our business and made good on our promise to drive significant returns.
“There’s a lot to be excited about from the standpoint of value creation as we look at 2013. Industrial and other non-construction sectors have balanced our mix and now account for about 50 percent of our business. We also expect to benefit further from the secular shift to rental. And non-residential construction is predicted to show reasonable improvement, with larger upswings in 2014 and 2015. We see opportunities to continue to grow our key accounts, reap the synergies of the merger and expand our fleet, while further lowering our debt leverage.”
Based in Greenwich, Conn., United Rentals is No. 1 on the RER 100.
