With Help from Acquisition, Toromont Posts 54-Percent Third Quarter Hike

Eastern Canadian Caterpillar dealer Toromont posted CDN $900.1 million in third quarter revenue compared to $584.2 million in the third quarter of 2017, a 54-percent leap, including the operations of the October 2017 acquisition of Quebec-based Cat dealer Hewitt.

Michael Roth

Nov. 7, 2018

2 min read

A poster on the wall at Battlefield Equipment Rental39s Brantford Ontario branch — A poster on the wall at Battlefield Equipment Rental's Brantford, Ontario, branch.

The transaction expanded Toromont’s operations to include the Caterpillar dealerships for Quebec, the Maritime Provinces and Western Labrador as well as the MCFA lift truck dealership for Quebec and Ontario.

Revenues of Toromont’s Equipment Group were $800.1 million in the quarter, a 64-percent year-over-year hike. Legacy Toromont revenues were down 2 percent in the quarter as higher rentals and product support were more than offset by lower equipment sales. The newly acquired business (Toromont QM) contributed $322.5 million in the quarter, reflecting an increase of 20 percent from revenues achieved at the predecessor organization in the third quarter of 2017, with growth across most lines of the business.

“We have considerable work to complete to unlock the significant value of the TQM acquisitions, but remain pleased with the integration and transition progress and with the earnings accretion over the relatively short timeline since the transaction closing,” said Scott Medhurst, president and CEO of Toromont Industries. “The team has embraced the sharing of best practices including key operational and financial disciplines, to further strengthen our position as a world class dealership. Overall the company delivered good results in the third quarter on solid execution in the legacy Equipment Group together with the incremental contribution from the acquired businesses.”

For the first nine months of 2018, Toromont revenues were $2.538 billion compared to $1.527 billion a year ago, a 66.2-percent increase.

Toromont’s refrigeration business CIMCO increased revenues 4 percent to $100 million in the third quarter.

Toromont’s total area for its Caterpillar business now spans Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba, as well as most of the territory of Nunavut. Its rental operations, Battlefield Equipment Rentals, is No. 14 on the RER 100.

About the Author

Michael Roth

Editor

Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.