United Rentals’ Flannery Explains Baker Acquisition, Widespread Q2 Gains

All of United Rentals’ regions increased rental revenue year over year in the second quarter, United president and chief operating officer Matt Flannery told an investors’ conference call this week, including Western Canada, which increased more than 12 percent in local currency, while nationally Canada was up almost 15 percent.

“In the U.S., conditions were particularly strong in the Gulf, the South, and the mid-Atlantic states,” Flannery said. “And this cycle stands out to me for the diversity of projects. In the South for example, we've got equipment on all kinds of projects from convention centers to stadiums, data centers, airports, even a nuclear lab. And that list goes on. And in the Gulf, we are seeing capital projects in petrochem start up in the back half of the year and most of these should carry out into 2019.

“In the Midwest we've got wind energy projects underway and infrastructure is taking off. More broadly growth in infrastructure across our organization plays well into our focus on that vertical. Our acquisition of Neff last year added large equipment to our fleet and that's been helping us win in infrastructure. So what are we doing to capitalize on all this? We are managing the business with lot of discipline while continuing to make investments in long term growth. You can see that in our Specialty segment we've opened 13 cold starts so far this year and we'll add another 50 plus branches with the Baker acquisition.

“Specialty is something that we feel sets us apart from the rest of the pack. In the second quarter rental revenue from our Trench Power and Pump segment was up almost 34 percent year-over-year. The bulk of that increase came from same store growth. This was driven in part by cross-selling. Our cross-selling revenue is up 28 percent through June versus last year. And we are keeping the field focused on branch to branch collaboration and cross selling is one of the big payoffs. It's a key lever for us in both return on assets and customer service.”

United Rentals officials were bullish about the not-yet-finalized acquisition of BakerCorp. Flannery explained some of the benefits the company sees in the addition of Baker.

“This deal is exactly what we’re looking for in specialty and at a high level,” Flannery said. “Baker and United both share the same space, but we each bring something different to the table. Baker will open doors for us with their bundled solutions for fluid, storage, transfer, and treatment and it promotes two-way cross-selling across the customer base. At the same time, it builds up our current platform for Pump Solutions. And we get a small but complementary toehold in Europe. Now our team has a long history of successful integrations and we'll be using our playbook with Baker for another smooth transition.”

Chief financial officer Bill Plummer shared some insight into United Rentals’ acquisition last year of assets of Cummins’ generator business.

“The Cummins asset has gotten us into the larger end of power and the team has done a great job with that,” Plummer said. “It's been a great deal -the team members that came with it, the assets that came with it have really deepened our penetration into the power space in a big way.”

For more on United Rentals’ Q2 results, go to: http://rermag.com/headline-news/united-rentals-posts-1891-billion-total-revenue-second-quarter