After three years of furious consolidation and monumental mergers, it could be said the equipment rental industry needed a breather, a collective moment to figure out where it stood and where it might be heading.
And so it was in 2000 that the pace of consolidation slowed dramatically, with fewer than half the number of deals made in each of the previous two years. Instead, companies talked more about same-store growth than growth through acquisition. They referenced utilization rates more than pro forma results. The attention turned to raising - or at least maintaining - rental rates and away from grabbing market share at any cost.
In short, getting your internal house in order became more important than taking over someone else's.
Still, there were major changes and shake-ups throughout the rental world. There was soap-opera drama in Miami, and not just Elian's or the dimpled ballots: A failed management buyout of Neff Corp. led to lawsuits, resignations and Securities and Exchange Commission inquiries.
There was the British invasion, rental-style, in the form of a huge merger of two U.S.-based, U.K.-owned RER 100 companies. The resulting company, a combination of Sunbelt Rentals and the three divisions of Initial Plant Services, created a force to be reckoned with, if integration challenges were met.
The traffic and trench safety segments emerged as hot new acquisition frontiers, with United Rentals acquiring dozens of specialists with tens of millions of dollars in revenue and National Equipment Services fast on its heels in the surge to specialize.
E-commerce discovered the rental industry in 2000, right about the time the Nasdaq dived into less exuberant waters. Many independents weren't convinced the technology readily applied to them, and most majors were fairly sure they could do the Internet thing themselves (thank you). But the online upstarts showed every intention of sticking around to show the industry a more efficient way to do business.
