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IRN100 - 5 year report

This toplist helps you track the trends over the last 5 years and includes data on the fastest growing companies, the top 25 fleet investors and a list of the top 50 European companies.

• Genre: Top List
• Sector: Rental
• Published: July 09
• No. pages:
• Price: £100.00 / $165.00 / €115.00

The IRN-100 list is all about tracking trends – trends in revenues, consolidation and market shares.

Looking back at the surveys over the past few years it is clear that while a lot has changed – for example, from 2005 to 2007 the top 100 total revenues increased almost 40% from €20.4 billion to €28.2 billion – there is a marked similarity between the 2006 and 2008 surveys.

Of the top 100 companies in the 2006 list (based on revenues for 2005), just 12 companies are now under different ownership or have been acquired by a competitor. Examples of big names dropping out through acquisitions include Algeco (now part of Williams Scotsman), Sunbelt Rentals (now a subsidiary of Ashtead Group), and NationsRent (acquired by Sunbelt).

Many of the top 100 companies have been making acquisitions, but the number of transactions involving major players buying other major players has been relatively small. It is for that reason that many of the top ten companies in the 2006 survey were still in the top 10 in 2008, including United Rentals, Hertz, RSC, Aggreko and Loxam.

The market shares of the bigger players are still tiny on a global basis, and small even in national terms, with few having more than a 10% share of their domestic markets. United Rentals – the world’s largest equipment rental company – is a good example. The fact that the top five rental companies have grown their revenues at around the same pace as the top 100 only serves to confirm this.

The surveys of the past few years tell a story of seemingly inexorable growth, reaching a peak in 2007. The 2009 survey, using revenues from 2008 and to be published in the June 2009 issue of International Rental News (IRN), will tell a slightly different story, one of stalled growth. And we will have to wait for the 2010 survey to see the full impact of the 2009 economic downturn on rental revenues.

Whatever future surveys show, the 2008 IRN-100 survey indicated a rental business poised for major changes. The degree of consolidation is still modest in comparison with other industries and that situation will surely not last for too many years.