Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports that Platinum Equity LLC, Los Angeles, Calif., may be poised to take over Las Vegas-headquartered Ahern Rentals if the company doesn’t file the court-ordered reorganization plan by the April deadline.
The reorganization plan is part of Ahern Rentals‘ bankruptcy filing last December. Ahern ranks seventh on Rental Equipment Register’s (RER) list of the country’s largest equipment-rental companies.
BusinessWeek quotes two unnamed investors as saying that Platinum will likely use its stake in the debt to take over. Platinum already runs equipment renter Maxim Crane Works LP, Pittsburgh, Pa., which it bought in 2008.
Ahern Rentals was founded in 1953 by the father of current president Don Ahern. By 2008, the Las Vegas-headquartered company had grown into a multi-state business with $382 million of annual revenue. From 2005 to 2008 Ahern doubled its debt to $611.2 million and added about 16,500 aerial lifts and other pieces of equipment. Then its plan to capitalize on a prospective building boom in Las Vegas backfired when construction all but died during the recession.
BusinessWeek quotes Ed Mally, head of institutional research at Imperial Capital LLC, an investment bank in New York, as saying that creditors likely would gain control of the equity in a reorganization.
Platinum Equity has said it plans to expand its equipment-rental business by buying competitors. In 2009, Louis Samson, who led Platinum’s 2008 buyout of Maxim, told RER, “Our ambitions are to be a consolidator. There’s no limit to our appetite.”
Lift & Access is part of the Catalyst Communications Network publication family.
