Essex reports growth and stability

Ron Schad, president and CEO at Essex Rental Corp in the USA, highlighted growth and stability at the company following release of its second quarter results.

Essex Rental Corp includes subsidiaries Essex Crane Rental Corp, Essex Finance Corp, Coast Crane Company (formerly known as CC Bidding Corp) and Coast Crane Ltd. Coast Crane was acquired in November 2010. Schad was comparing results of the quarter ended 30 June 2011 with those of the same quarter in 2010.

"Essex continues to experience steady growth and stability in its three business segments: equipment rentals, equipment distribution, and parts and service. With the exception of our crawler crane fleet, we experienced increases in utilisation rates during the second quarter ended June 30, 2011 for all of the categories of equipment that we rent. Crawler cranes experienced a slight decline in utilisation due to the conclusion of certain levee projects.

"Excluding these levee-related crawler cranes, we have continued to see a steady increase in utilisation on a comparable quarter and year to date basis for this asset category. Specifically, since June 30, 2010 and December 31, 2010, the number of crawler cranes on rent excluding those on levee related projects has increased by 5.3% and 7.5%, respectively."

Schad continued, "Overall, we are pleased with the business trends that we are seeing at Coast Crane. The Coast Crane acquisition has enabled us to diversify our earnings and is presenting us with a number of meaningful growth opportunities. The steady increase in rental equipment utilisation rates, combined with accelerated revenues in our equipment distribution segment and the predictability of our parts and service segment, provides Essex with a balanced business portfolio that is well positioned for growth as our end markets continue to recover."