Rental company, distributor and software provider Noble Iron posted $6.49 million in first quarter revenue compared to $5.65 million in the first quarter of 2015, a 14.8-percent increase. The increase was caused by a hike in equipment rental and distribution revenue driven by higher utilization and asset-sharing initiatives as well as the strengthening of the U.S. dollar, the company said. Revenue from Texada Software remained relatively flat year over year as last year contained a number of one-time revenue gains and the company’s new software products are currently early in the roll-out stage.
Cost of revenue during the first quarter was $3.1 million, an 18 percent or $0.5 million jump compared to the first quarter of 2015, because of an increase in expenses for third party asset shared equipment, depreciation, leasing of equipment delivery vehicles and the strengthening of the U.S. dollar.
For the first quarter of 2016, Noble Iron posted a net loss of $3.1 million, a 13-percent or $0.4 million increase compared to the year-ago quarter because of increased expense levels and investments in rolling out new initiatives. The company recorded an adjusted EBITDA loss of $0.1 million
Noble Iron’s software group, Texada Software, remains focused on the rollout of new applications such as Fleet Logic and Insights. Within the equipment group, Noble Iron’s focus continues to be on optimizing the rental utilization of company and third party-owned fleet and on strengthening its asset-sharing platform and market share.
During the quarter, the company launched Insights, a business intelligence SaaS application, available for Texada Software customers. It also hired Louisa Fossett as Noble Iron’s chief people officer.
Noble Iron, No. 87 on the RER 100, is headquartered in San Francisco, with equipment operations in Los Angeles and Houston and software facilities in Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
