It has been an exciting year in the equipment rental industry. By all reports, it has been a very strong year for the rental business, with consistent demand for rental equipment, especially in non-residential construction. It has certainly been a year of major transactions involving larger rental companies – RSC and NES acquired by private equity firms, Sunbelt acquiring NationsRent, Aggreko Buying GE Energy Rentals, and lift manufacturer JLG acquired by Oshkosh Truck Corp. (the last two deals finalized this past week). There were a lot more, too many stories to name in a short space, and from the rumors I’m hearing, there will be plenty to tell you about in 2007.

For those of you who don’t wish to read through the entire year’s back issues, scroll down to The Year in Review, Part 1 and read the highlights of the first six months of 2006. We’ll recap the second half of the year next week –unless something so big breaks that we forget.

And for those of you that I, or the rest of the RER staff, don’t personally speak to, here’s wishing all our readers a very happy holiday season and best wishes for the year ahead.

--Michael Roth