Another Equipment Rental Company Up For Grabs

The AFR is today reporting that storage container company Royal Wolf Holdings is back on the market seeking upwards of $300m. Owner GFN Asia Pacific is sounding out PE buyers in an attempt to offload the asset it acquired 2 years ago. When it last publicly traded the company reported revenues of around $150m in 2017.

The news comes on the back of recent merger and acquisition activity in the sector with National Plant & Equipment purchasing Wolff Group (unrelated to Royal Wolf) back in April, Onsite Rentals purchasing Prime Rentals also in April and the news in June that Onsite plans to IPO later in the year.

It is clear that the industry is consolidating and attempting to cash-in on the positive trading conditions being generated by the East-Coast infrastructure boom and a resurgent mining sector. The question now is whether buyers/investors buy-in to the longer term forecasts, this is a sector that hasn’t been ‘frothy’ since the mining boom peaked some 5 years ago and there have been some high-profile victims along the way (Force Access Group for one).