Essex Rental Corp. announced its pro forma unaudited consolidated results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2016, reporting a drop in dollar utilization for rough-terrain and tower cranes and a year-over-year decrease of $1.4 million in gross profit to $2.3 million for its equipment rental segment.
Nick Matthews, president and CEO of Essex stated, “We continue to operate in a challenging market that has been negatively impacted by reduced activity in the energy sector, particularly related to oil and gas. Our rental and equipment sales lines of business were most impacted by this softer demand, specifically in the Gulf, Alaska and Southern California. The year-over-year declines in dollar utilization were primarily attributable to a decline in time utilization, which was driven by the softer demand and the timing of tower crane project starts and ends. As a result, we are being more aggressive with respect to rental rates in an effort to increase utilization in some of our asset classes.”
“We also believe that our business at Coast Crane was negatively affected by the protracted foreclosure process at Essex Crane. Despite our proactive communication with customers, the public nature of the foreclosure process naturally led to concerns for end-users as to the future of Coast Crane, and we believe that our competitors sought to gain a competitive advantage by fueling these customer concerns. We continue to provide assurances to our customers about Coast Crane's ongoing business which, together with a rebranding process at the Company to focus on the Coast Crane brand, has begun to resonate within the industry.”
Third Quarter 2016 Highlights
- Dollar utilization for rough terrain cranes decreased to 17.0% for the three month period ended September 30, 2016 compared to 21.7% for the three month period ended September 30, 2015;
- Dollar utilization for tower cranes decreased to 19.1% for the three month period ended September 30, 2016 compared to 24.6% for the three month period ended September 30, 2015;
- Equipment rental segment gross profit decreased by approximately $1.4 million to $2.3 million for the three month period ended September 30, 2016 compared to $3.7 million for the three month period ended September 30, 2015;
For more about Essex Rental Corp.'s third quarter results...
