Essex Rental Corp., Buffalo Grove, Ill., announced its first quarter 2012 results, which ended March 31, 2012.
Among the highlights, the average monthly crawler crane rental rates increased by $717 to $16,233 for the three-month period from $15,516 for the quarter ended March 31, 2011. Utilization of crawler cranes increased to 37 percent in the first quarter of 2012, compared to 33.9 percnet in the first quarter of 2011; utilization of our rough terrain fleet was 54.8 percent, which represented a sequential quarterly increase in utilization of 3 percent; and utilization of larger tower cranes and elevator lifts improved by 10.6 percent on a sequential quarterly basis and on certain tower crane sub-classes utilization is above 60 percent.
New, used and rental equipment sales totaled $6.2 million for the quarter, a 50.8 percent increase from $4.1 million for the three month period ended March 31, 2011.
Revolving debt balances have decreased by $4.0 million over the three months ended March 31, 2012, in part, due to $5.3 million of rental equipment sales at an average of 110.3 percent of Orderly Liquidation Value.
Ron Schad, president and CEO of Essex said: "During the first quarter of 2012, we continued to see positive trends in our rental and service segments. Rental rates remain stable and, in certain asset types, including heavy lift rough-terrain equipment and certain crawler crane classes, we have achieved utilization levels that provide us the opportunity to increase rental rates.”
Schad added that Essex achieved sequential quarterly increases in the utilization of many of its equipment classes, including our rough-terrain and large tower crane fleets. The company is experiencing increased demand from energy- and petrochemical-related customers located in the Gulf Coast region, central California, and in the Pacific Northwest.
"We were pleased with the level of rental fleet asset sales, particularly of non-core assets including aerial work platforms and forklifts that were acquired as part of the Coast acquisition,” Schad said. “Proceeds from these sales were used to reduce our debt balance and in the future may be used to acquire new equipment in asset classes that are experiencing higher utilization levels. Both our improving utilization trends and progress in our rental asset sale program have continued into our second quarter.”
Implementing a new IT system at Coast also has allowed the company to proactively manage this business unit more effectively. This, in conjunction with increased utilization has brought improvement to Coast's operating performance in the first quarter of 2012.
For the complete report, visit investor.essexcrane.com.
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