Noble Iron to sell Houston operations for $6.24 million

Noble Iron is selling its Houston rental business for $6.24 million. The company has sold all of its shares of Noble Rents, Inc., which operates the Houston business, to a third party. According to reports, Noble Iron will continue to operate and grow its equipment rental sales business in California, as well as its software company, Texada Software.

As part of the transaction, the purchaser has assumed an existing asset backed credit facility in the principal amount of $5.63 million.

"In consideration of the current state of Houston's challenged economy and the relatively small size of our Houston equipment operations, we feel this sale is positive as it is an opportunity to reduce outstanding debt and to better position us to focus on scaling our software and equipment logistics and fulfillment operations in Southern California as we enter into 2017,” said Nabil Kassam, Noble Iron's founder, chairman and CEO. “We at Noble Iron are committed to executing our goal of offering regional construction professionals the most comprehensive selection of equipment and services on-demand, because of a synergistic combination of our logistics infrastructure, equipment service capability, shared asset marketplace, and state-of-the-art software."

The announcement comes four months after the announcement Noble’s CFO, Suzy Taherian, would step down, and two months following its announcement that revenues declined for the second quarter.

In September, the company posted $5.8 million in revenue during the second quarter, compared to $6.6 million for the second quarter of 2015, an 11.8-percent decline. For the first six months of 2016, revenue increased slightly from $12.2 million to $12.3 million.