Stephenson’s Rental Services, one of the leading Canadian rental companies and dominant player in the Toronto rental market, last week announced a strategic alliance with TSC Stores, a hardware chain with 40 locations in Ontario, to create in-store rental departments. For the initial phase of the partnership, Stephenson’s and TSC opened two rental pilot locations: TSC Uxbridge on April 18 and TSC Bowmanville April 24.

“We enter this strategic alliance with enthusiasm and anticipation as we believe this arrangement provides Stephenson’s an avenue to extend our brand to a new customer segment, leverage the utilization of our high-quality rental fleet, while supporting TSC with a new product offering for their customers,” said Stephenson’s president and CEO Willie Swisher. “We expect this relationship will pave the way for us to open a significant network of hub stores associated with the TSC network across Ontario, providing a heightened level of service to our customers.”

Once the two pilot locations are successfully established, Stephenson’s and TSC stores plan to expand the network.

“We too are extremely excited about the growth potential that this strategic relationship provides,” said David Roussy, president and CEO of TSC Stores. “By bringing together these two great brands in the Ontario marketplace, we will deliver a very unique and differentiated value proposition to our customer. The venture also allows us to leverage the tremendous investments that we have made over the last several years in our store network to increase our revenue productivity per outlet.”

Stephenson’s Rental Services has been operating in Ontario for more than 50 years and is No. 35 on the new RER 100. TSC Stores, a 43-year-old Canadian-owned and operated retailer has 40 stores in Ontario and two in Manitoba. TSC has been described as a cross between a country general store and a do-it-yourself center.