Sunbelt Rentals Q4 FY2026 Earnings Call - Record Revenue, Margin Compression, and Aries Acquisition

Operator, Conference Call Operator: Greetings. Welcome to the Sunbelt Rentals fiscal fourth quarter 2026 earnings conference call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. You may be placed into question queue at any time by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. We ask that you please ask one question, one follow-up, then return to the queue. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero. It’s now my pleasure to turn the call over to Kevin Powers, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Kevin, please go ahead.

Kevin Powers, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations, Sunbelt Rentals: Great. Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. Today, we’re reviewing our fourth quarter and year-end results ended April 30th, 2026, with comments on operations and our financials, including our view of the industry and our strategic outlook. The prepared remarks will be followed by an open Q&A. Let me remind you that today’s call will include forward-looking statements. These statements are based on the environment as we see it today and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the factors identified in the press release, as well as other filings with the S.E.C. Today, we’re reporting financial results on a U.S. GAAP basis. In addition, we’ll be discussing our non-GAAP information that we believe is useful in evaluating the company’s operating performance.

Reconciliations to these non-GAAP measures to the closest GAAP equivalent can be found in the earnings release in the conference call materials. This morning, I’m joined by Brendan Horgan, our Chief Executive Officer, and Alexander Pease, our Chief Financial Officer. I’ll now turn the call over to Brendan.

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Thanks, Kevin. Good morning, everyone. As always, we’ll kick off the call with a safety update before we move on to the strategic and operational highlights for the year. Beginning on slide five. Safety remains foundational to our success and is central to our culture at Sunbelt Rentals. For me, one of the more powerful reminders of this is our annual safety week, which we hosted last month. As I visited branches across the business and saw firsthand the deep commitment our teams have to not only protecting one another, but our customers. It’s clear to see how our engagement continues to translate into measurable results. World-class safety program and the ownership of Engage for Life by teams throughout the business. These results reflect sustained investment in training, technology-enabled safety monitoring, and a culture of standards and accountability across all of our locations.

World-class safety performance not only protects our people, but also drives operational efficiencies and strengthens customer confidence in our brand. To our Sunbelt team members listening in, thank you for your efforts to date and your ongoing commitment to Engage for Life. Turning now to slide six to highlight key messages for fiscal year 2026. The business delivered record Q4 and full-year revenues of $2.8 billion and $11.2 billion, growing 8.9% and 3.4% respectively over last year, which came in above the top end of our March guidance. This revenue produced $4.7 billion adjusted EBITDA, drove a record free cash flow of $2.1 billion, contributing to record returns to shareholders of $1.9 billion through share repurchases and dividends. Momentum accelerated through the end of the year with 8% fourth quarter rental revenue growth, led by specialty growth of 15% and general tool growth of 4%.

This performance demonstrates the continued strength, resilience, and diversity of our business and end markets. In addition, rental rates remained resilient, reflecting structural progression and disciplined investments. We continued to expand our footprint through 51 greenfield openings and 24 locations via bolt-on. Our top-line momentum built throughout the year with mega-project strengths, both in starts and pipeline, demand for energy solutions, significant live events, and large strategic account activity. In addition, we continue to experience what we call equilibrium between completions and starts in our local non-residential construction markets, meaning in essence that starts and completions are in balance, and importantly, our leading indicators remain positive, perhaps illustrated best by our significant fourth quarter momentum gains. Lastly, we’re pleased to have announced a strategic transaction expanding our specialty offering that we believe will aid in the delivery of strong returns to shareholders.

Let’s turn to slide seven for some added color on this transaction. I’ll spend just a few minutes on the acquisition we announced this morning, which aligns with our capital allocation priorities, advances our Sunbelt 4.0 strategy, and further positions Sunbelt for long-term growth. We’re excited to announce the acquisition of Reliant Asset Management, which creates our 13th specialty business line, Sunbelt Rentals Modular Solutions. Reliant, which trades under the Aries brand, serves as a foundational entry point into the attractive modular solutions market. This will be a core part of the Sunbelt formula for driving complementary growth in specialty and general tool while growing our addressable markets. Modular is a highly complementary vertical to our other site services related offerings such as ground protection, temporary structures, temporary walls, and temporary fencing. Which entirely aligns with our Sunbelt 4.0 strategy.

Aries brings a national reach, a strong management team, and a meaningful backlog with a significant cross-selling opportunity through Sunbelt’s strategic sales coverage and existing customer relationships. Today, Aries is in just 14 of Sunbelt’s top 50 markets, which clearly gives us substantial runway to grow density over time through both greenfields and additional bolt-on M&A. Portable storage is also under-penetrated in the existing fleet, which is another area for further investment, customer, and revenue gains. We look forward to capitalizing on the natural synergies Modular Solutions brings as we continue to integrate its offering into the power of Sunbelt. Let’s now take a look at some of the construction industry trends and forecasts on slide eight. This is our usual presentation of Dodge starts, Dodge Momentum Index, the Architecture Billings Index, and the Fed funds rate.

The U.S. Dodge Momentum Index continues to signal strength in construction demand, providing a positive backdrop for our business. This leading indicator tracks commercial projects with projected starts values of less than $500 million as they first enter the planning stage and serves as a predictor therefore of construction starts to come over the next 12-18 months. This best represents an indicator for what we commonly refer to as local non-residential construction. The momentum figures and starts on this slide feed into the put in place figures on slide nine. Providing a broader view of the U.S. construction markets and North American rental market outlook. According to Dodge, total U.S. construction put in place, excluding residential, is expected to reach approximately $1.3 trillion in 2027, with continued growth through the end of the decade.

Our construction markets are highly diversified across local, non-residential, large, and a broad sector range of mega projects and infrastructure. As you saw in our fiscal 2026 results, and you will see in our fiscal 2027 guide, our business growth continues to outpace the North American construction market. This is driven by our scale and market diversity, breadth of solutions, and the continued structural progression of our business and industry. Turning to our full year results in more detail on slide 10. Total revenue and rental revenue both grew 3.4% to a record $11.2 billion and $10.3 billion respectively, with general tool and specialty sequentially strengthening throughout the year. Adjusted EBITDA declined 2% year-over-year, with margins compressing 200 basis points to 41.9%. Margins were impacted by three factors.

First, inconsistent with what we experienced and detailed throughout the year, our growth in the year was largely volume led. Carrying costs such as asset fleet repositioning to drive utilization and unlock pockets of market opportunities and growth. Second, particularly related to the fourth quarter, margins reflected a greater contribution from specialty, which carries, as you know, a lower EBITDA margin than general tool, but delivers extremely attractive returns on investment and runway for growth. Margin mix was also impacted by a higher contribution from ancillary revenues in areas such as E&D, fuel, and re-rent. When these profitable revenues outpace pure rents revenues, they’ll impact margins. Third, also specific to Q4, we lapsed the previously communicated reversal of a $28 million receivables provision recognized in the fourth quarter last year related to a customer Chapter 11 filing in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Excluding the reversal benefit recognized in the prior year, adjusted EBITDA margin in the quarter declined 290 basis points. We invested $2.2 billion in CapEx as we maintained discipline in capital deployment, focusing on fleet replacement and targeted growth areas. We generated record free cash flow of $2.1 billion, which was up 23% year-over-year, demonstrating our ability to fund growth while returning significant capital to shareholders, which in fiscal year 2026, we returned nearly $1.9 billion through share buybacks and dividends, demonstrating the resilience of our business and continued ability to invest in growth. Slide 11 illustrates our North America fleet on rent trends, where we are experiencing continued strength and momentum. Large strategic customers and mega-project activity is fueling growth, we continue to see positive leading indicators, importantly, the industry supply and demand dynamics are healthy.

Which when combined with structural progression, continue to support a resilient rate environment. Our diversified business model and deep customer relationships are driving increased cross-selling between North America General Tool and Specialty segments. We also continue to build momentum through the network of 537 locations that have been added during Sunbelt 3.0 and thus far in Sunbelt 4.0, which are maturing and contributing to our growth. As you see here, our fleet on rent growth momentum has continued in May and June. Moving to slide 12, which shows equipment rental revenue growth on a billings per day basis across our segments. North America General Tool delivered consistent low single-digit growth throughout the year, accelerating to 4% in Q4. This was driven by positive volume momentum and resilient rates in end markets, which continued to be mixed.

Local non-residential construction markets, which I’ve mentioned, remained in this equilibrium state where we believe starts are generally in balance with completions. Therefore, growth is being driven by the ongoing strength of mega project landscape and the broader construction markets. North America Specialty delivered a strong 14% growth in Q4 and 6% for the full year. Growth was driven by broad-based project demand across markets, from mega projects to live events to demand for energy solutions. This performance was broad across multiple specialty lines, including power and HVAC, load banks, scaffolding, temporary fencing, structures, trench safety, and ground protection. When comparing Q4 rental revenue growth to Q1 by segment, General Tool exited the year to pace four times its entry and Specialty nearly three times. This momentum in Q4 gives us confidence in the trajectory for fiscal year 2027.

With that, I’ll hand the call over to Alex to review the financials in more detail. Alex?

Alexander Pease, Chief Financial Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Thank you, Brendan. Good morning to everyone. Our fourth quarter results for the company are set out on slide 14. Total revenue grew 8.9%, driven by higher sales of used and new rental equipment, alongside 8% rental revenue growth. We ended the year with strong momentum, driven by volume growth and higher utilization across most geographies with stable rates. As Brendan’s already explained, our adjusted EBITDA margin cost factors impacting our fourth quarter results were similar to our nine-month results, with Q4 also reflecting the lapping of an approximately $28 million receivables provision reversal recognized in Q4 of fiscal 2025 and a higher mix of ancillary revenues. CapEx increased 76% in the quarter, reflecting funding for ongoing specialty growth, recent mega-project wins, and replacement timing between Q4 of fiscal 2026 and Q1 of fiscal 2027.

Finally, free cash flow was $627 million, reflecting the ramp-up in CapEx in the quarter. This table on slide 15 provides a comprehensive view of our Q4 and full year financial results. Full year total revenue reached a record $11.2 billion, up 3.4%, with equipment rental revenue of $10.3 billion, also growing 3.4%. Adjusted EBITDA was $4.7 billion, with the full-year margin at 41.9%. Absent the U.K. business, North America margins were 43.4%, inclusive of all company overheads. Depreciation for the year was unchanged at $2.2 billion, reflecting disciplined fleet management alongside improved time utilization. After an interest expense of $387 million, full-year adjusted pre-tax profit was $2.1 billion. Adjusted EPS was $3.72 for the year, while trailing 12-month return on investment was 14%. In the fourth quarter, below adjusted EBITDA, depreciation declined 2.8%, significantly less than revenue growth, while interest expense was broadly in line with the prior year.

Adjusted EPS was $0.74, down year-over-year, primarily reflecting the lapping of the receivables position reversal discussed earlier, as well as a higher effective tax rate. The increase in the tax rate was largely due to the non-recurrence of a favorable state tax adjustment recorded in the prior year period. The combination of these two line items added $0.07 to the fourth quarter of 2025 that did not repeat in 2026. Turning to North America General Tool on slide 16, we delivered full-year total revenue of $6.5 billion, up 1.7%, with rental revenue growth of 2.1%. In Q4, rental revenue growth accelerated to 4.4%, led by volume improvement and stable rates. Strength in mega projects helped mitigate moderated conditions in the local non-residential construction market.

In Q4, the adjusted EBITDA margin performance was the result of volume-led growth driving costs higher, most notably costs to reposition the fleet to growth markets. Additionally, the higher mix of ancillary revenues coinciding with the sharp rise in fuel prices had a negative mix impact on segment margin. We do expect these margin dynamics to improve in fiscal 2027. Lastly, dollar utilization was 47% for the full year. North American Specialty continues to be our strongest growth engine, with full-year total revenue of $3.7 billion, up 6.5%, and rental revenue growth of 5.8%. Q4 was particularly strong, with rental revenue accelerating to 15.1% growth, driven by continued demand in project-related activity and expanded scope of our value-added services. Our power and HVAC business increased by nearly 30%, led by load banks.

Adjusted EBITDA margin of 45% declined compared to last year, mainly due to the one-time lapping of the receivable provision reversal that was booked within our Specialty segment. When you adjust for the prior year benefit, Specialty adjusted EBITDA margins increased 20 basis points and adjusted operating profit margins increased 160 basis points. Dollar utilization improved 75% from 73% in the prior year, reflecting our ability to deploy Specialty assets more productively as the fleet matures and cross-sell opportunities expand. Turning to the U.K. segment on slide 18. Full-year total revenue was $932 million, up 2.8%, with rental revenue growth of 3.1%. The U.K. team has been focused on delivering operational efficiency and improving long-term returns on capital. Restructuring actions were taken during the year to unlock value, drive stronger free cash flow, and better serve our customers. Moving on to CapEx and free cash flow on slide 19.

This slide shows our capital expenditure discipline and strong free cash flow generation. Full-year total CapEx declined 18.5% year-over-year to $2.2 billion, reflecting our focus on fleet replacement and supporting targeted pockets of growth, primarily in specialty. We dynamically allocate capital based on market conditions, ensuring we maintain fleet quality while capturing the best return opportunities. To that end, consistent with our capital allocation priorities to first focus on growth, we invested to open 51 new greenfields, a mix of 31 specialty locations and 20 general tool locations. In addition to that, we spent $238 million on 13 bolt-on acquisitions, adding 24 new Sunbelt locations. Lastly, free cash flow grew 22.7% to $2.1 billion, a new record for the company. This demonstrates that our cash from operations are fully capable of funding volume growth while returning meaningful capital to shareholders. Next, looking at our balance sheet on slide 20.

Net debt at period end was $7.6 billion, consisting of $1.4 billion of first-lien senior secured bank debt and $6.2 billion in senior notes. Net debt to EBITDA leverage stood at 1.6 times, well within our stated target range of one to two times. This conservative leverage positioning provides significant flexibility to fund both organic growth investments and strategic M&A while maintaining our commitment to returning capital to shareholders through dividends and buybacks. Following the Aries acquisition, we continue to remain comfortably within our targeted range. During the year, we’ve returned approximately $1.9 billion to shareholders through share buybacks of $1.4 billion and dividends paid for $464 million. For the final dividend of the year, our $0.75 per share will be paid on July 24th, resulting in a full-year dividend of $1.125 per share, which represents 4% growth year-over-year.

Looking forward, given our new U.S. listing construct, we intend to transition to a quarterly dividend. The timing and amount of our Q1 dividend will be announced in conjunction with our Q1 results. Now turning to slide 21. We’re introducing our guidance for fiscal year full year 2027, which reflects the continuation of strong demand alongside a disciplined focus on converting growth into improved returns over time. For fiscal 2027, we expect total revenue growth of between 4.5%-7.5% and rental revenue growth between 5%-8%, led by specialty and supported by steady growth in general tool. We expect mega projects to remain an important driver and assume local non-residential construction markets remain stable as our internal indicators continue to trend positively.

In terms of profitability, we expect adjusted EBITDA between $4.85 billion-$5.05 billion, representing solid year-over-year growth with margins broadly flat, reflecting what we have so thoroughly covered in today’s call related to revenue mix, as well as the first year of Aries in our consolidated results. This flattish margin profile in 2027 reflects the continuation of stronger relative specialty growth and higher ancillary revenues. In terms of margin expectations as the year proceeds, we expect to see an improvement in the back half of the year as our operational excellence drivers gain more traction. Of course, if we are also able to gain greater traction and velocity through our dynamic customer pricing initiatives, this could provide some upside for the year as well. Finally, we expect net rental equipment CapEx of between $2.05 billion-$2.45 billion and gross rental CapEx of between $2.45 billion-$2.85 billion.

The increase reflects higher growth investments across both general tool and specialty, as well as the incremental capital required to grow Aries. In addition, we are planning to open 55 greenfield locations, with 15 coming from general tool and 40 coming from specialty. Looking ahead, our focus remains on converting continued volume growth into margin stabilization and improvement over time. With that, I’ll turn the call back over to Brendan to close us out.

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Thanks, Alex. Before we open up for questions, I’ll take just a moment to look ahead at fiscal 2027 and share why we’re confident in the momentum we’re carrying into the new year. The market backdrop remains constructive, and our strategic positioning has never been stronger. On slide 23, as always, our guidance for this year reflects our clear and disciplined capital allocation priorities. Our first priorities are organic investments. Next, we focus on disciplined bolt-on M&A, and finally, we return capital to shareholders through a progressive dividend and share buybacks while staying within our long-term leverage range of 1-2 times. Turning to slide 24. We will continue to execute against our well-known Sunbelt 4.0 strategic growth plan as we advance our five actionable components, of which customer growth, performance, sustainability and investment.

Our leadership team gave an in-depth update about our progress across each of these actionable components during our March Investor Day, and we look forward to continuing the momentum in fiscal year 2027. To close on slide 25, I want to reinforce the core investment thesis for Sunbelt Rentals, which were clearly demonstrated in today’s results and our guide for fiscal year 2027. We operate in a large, structurally growing rental industry where long-term trends create significant opportunity for well-positioned leaders. Our distinct competitive advantage, scale, network density, specialty breadth, technology-enabled systems, safety platform, and an execution-driven culture compound over time and deliver superior outcomes. We have clear growth paths through share gains, specialty expansion and cluster market strategy, driving sustained revenue growth and durable margins.

Our strong balance sheet and through-the-cycle free cash flow enable flexible capital deployment and our disciplined capital allocation priorities within our stated leverage range provide a foundation for long-term shareholder value creation. With that, operator, I think we’re ready to open the call for questions.

Operator, Conference Call Operator: Certainly. We’ll now be conducting a question and answer session. If you’d like to be placed in the question queue, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you’d like to remove yourself from the queue, please press star two. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. As a reminder, we ask you, please ask one question, one follow-up, then return to the queue. Our first question today is coming from Rob Wertheimer from Melius Research. Your line is now live.

Rob Wertheimer, Analyst, Melius Research: Thanks, good morning, everybody. You talked about the margin drivers on the call, I heard it, but I wonder if you could just sort of, in a general sense, talk about what it would take to get back to margin growth in the upcoming year. I know you mentioned a couple factors on narrow pricing and so forth. Are you seeing drag from mega projects in margin? What’s the biggest kind of hold up to growth there?

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Yeah. Good morning, Rob. I’ll start with that. To begin with, in terms of mega projects, as we said, across the life cycle of a mega project, margin profile is essentially the same as the business as a whole. There are periods of time when we have more early mega project wins, where we have significant load-ins, et cetera, where there will be a slight or momentary couple of quarters degradation from an overall margin standpoint. I would say that we’re in one of those periods now, given the volume of mega project wins that we’ve experienced, that will carry on through the first half of the year. I think you heard Alex in his prepared remarks talk about this being a back half year opportunity from a margin standpoint.

The other thing, of course, is we’ve got a bit of rate and pricing momentum, as we gain more of that, of course, we will see margin impact there, not just in Gen Rents, which is probably most pronounced at the moment, across the business overall. Then the other one I just want to point to, Rob, maybe it was a bit in your question, not entirely, is just this mix effect. First things first, just being specialty, right? This is a high margin, particularly operating profit and high ROI business. It’s got great opportunity for growth and a great quarter that it posted with 15% growth. If you look at specialty for the quarter as a, for instance, our pure rental revenue, so just what you charge for the rental rate of whatever the assets are, we’re up 8% in the quarter.

Where the ancillary revenues, E&D, fuel, re-rental, we’re up 32%, 33%, and therefore you’re going to have some compression overall on margin.

Alexander Pease, Chief Financial Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Yeah, let me just give you one additional color point on the mega projects. I think it’s a really good question, and it actually points to the strength in the business and why we’re so optimistic about 2027. If you look quarter one, quarter two, quarter three of this year, the valuation of the projects in the funnel was around $10 billion. If you look in quarter four, that valuation jumped to around $25 billion. You’ve more than two x-ed the valuation of projects in the funnel, which points exactly to the effect that Brendan mentioned. That as we load in those projects before we’re invoicing revenue, you will see some margin compression. Boy, it sure speaks to a really healthy pipeline.

Rob Wertheimer, Analyst, Melius Research: That’s fantastic. Just for clarity, that’s projects. That’s not like Dodge data at this point. That’s kind of projects you’re looking at specifically, right? I’ll stop there.

Alexander Pease, Chief Financial Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: No, that’s projects that we have actually won.

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: That’s our pipeline. Those are awards.

Alexander Pease, Chief Financial Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Yeah.

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: That’s not the typical slide you’re used to seeing that shows the Dodge backlog.

Rob Wertheimer, Analyst, Melius Research: Perfect. Thank you.

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Great. Thanks, Rob.

Operator, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Next question is coming from Anjalie Vermillion from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now live.

Anjalie Vermillion, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Hi. Good afternoon. Oh, sorry. Good morning rather, Brendan and Alex. Firstly, on your guidance for rental revenue growth, 5%-8%. Just trying to unpack it a bit here. You’ve done 8% in Q4. The comp is pretty undemanding through your fiscal 2027. You’ve done quite a large acquisition as well more recently. Within that guide, could you talk a little bit about how much is already locked in by that acquisition and other deals that you’ve done, and how much is sort of underlying organic growth? As a follow-up to that on rate, you’ve talked about rates being stable over the year.

I’d be curious to hear how that trended in Q4 relative to the first nine months of the year, given some of the cost inflation and so on, and given all these internal initiatives you’ve spoken about, sounds like you’re pretty confident on positive rate growth in 2027. Is that right? Thank you.

Alexander Pease, Chief Financial Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Yeah. I’ll take a stab at it, and Brendan will add some additional color. As it relates to the guide relative to the exit point on Q4, I think it’s really important to mention that we have a lot of one-time activity related to non-construction events, particularly around things like FIFA, the World Cup event. That’s around a $70 or so million kind of one-time effect. I also think it’s important, as we’ve said, the local non-residential construction markets, which are so critical to our business, remain in equilibrium, so are certainly stable but we’re not ready to call an inflection point against that. That’s really what’s underpinning the guidance for the year. Rest assured, we feel really good about the momentum in the business and are pretty confident in the guidance that we’re putting forward as it relates to rental revenue growth.

As it relates to rate, which I think was the second piece of your question, we’re now active with our dynamic customer pricing in 15 markets, we’re beginning to scale that. It’s still early days, which is why we sort of highlighted there’s tailwinds as it relates to rates, that’s not embedded in the guidance, that would be consistent to how we spoke about it during the Capital Markets Day. Again, rest assured, rates have been stable and we’re starting to see some green shoots that are positive trends. Last point you mentioned on cost. There are things that we’re doing around cost to sort of mitigate some of the margin headwinds. There’s always the inflationary effect on salaries and wages. That’s around 3%. That’s a big line item on the P&L, obviously rate becomes very important to offset that.

We’re taking some initiatives on improving the reimbursement rates that we get for transportation expense. Obviously, as we see more broad-based growth across the footprint, some of that fleet repositioning cost should begin to mitigate as our utilization rates improve. There’s a lot of things that we’re doing, I think it’s really important to emphasize the point that Brendan made in response to the earlier question and in some of the prepared remarks. Mix is such a big driver of what our margin profile looks like. When you see specialty growth at the extremely exciting levels that it’s at relative to general tool, you’re always going to see a slight level of margin compression, you’re also going to see ROI expansion because that segment comes with higher ROI. That’s just sort of where the mix lands.

Last point on mix would be the high ancillary growth. In the quarter, ancillaries in specialty grew north of 30% relative to pure rental growing just under 10%. That’s things like re-rent. It’s fuel surcharges. It’s erection and dismantling revenue. All of those are very attractive high ROI revenues, come at 10%-15% margin as opposed to double-digit strong, sort of 50% or so margins in the pure rental side. Hopefully that helps explain some of the dynamics.

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Just a point, Annelise, on your question on Aries in terms of contribution. It’s about 1% of that guide. Actually, just a touch under 1%. It’s also worth mentioning there, year one, that’s going to be a drag on margin, even more so than specialty typically would have. Aries actually had quite a large portion of their revenues that stemmed from sales, you’ll see over the quarters and years to come, as we significantly expand that business and it generates more and more contribution for us, you’ll see that shift to virtually exclusively rental revenues with just a bit of sales. Did we get everything you were looking for there, Annelise?

Anjalie Vermillion, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Yes. I think you covered all of it. Thank you very much, guys.

Alexander Pease, Chief Financial Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Thank you.

Operator, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Kyle Menges from Citi. Your line is now live.

Kyle Menges, Analyst, Citi: Thanks for taking the question. Good morning, guys. I was hoping if we could dig into the rental revenue guidance a little bit more, especially in light of the CapEx that you’re guiding. It would seem like you’re adding roughly 10% to your fleet and then throwing 5%-8% off of that added OEC. I’m just trying to understand the underlying dollar use that’s being assumed in the guidance. On the surface, it would seem maybe like dollar use could actually be flat to maybe negative year-over-year in 2027, and just want to make sure that I’m thinking about that the right way.

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Sure. Thanks, Kyle. Good morning. Actually, you can’t quite tell from the guide what the average is because you don’t know the phasing of that. That average fleet growth, in essence, in our plan is just shy of the midpoint of the rental revenue guidance. Therefore, we would anticipate a slight progression from a dollar utilization standpoint. As you would have heard Alex talk about in prepared remarks and some of the questions, of course, there’s opportunity there from a pricing standpoint, if we can get a bit more momentum, which actually reminds me to another point of Annalisa’s question there, and I’ll mix this into yours as well, Kyle. We did see a bit of momentum there in rate when we look at Q4 versus Q1 and Q3, and we do have some positive rate embedded in that guide overall.

Therefore, you come out to a bit what you were thinking, but again, it’s certainly not the 10% growth that you were doing the quick math on.

Kyle Menges, Analyst, Citi: Yeah. Makes sense. That’s helpful. I would just love to hear more about Reliant and the expansion opportunity you see. You talked about Reliant being in 14 of your top 50 markets. I’m curious how quickly you think you can scale that. What the pace of scaling that into additional markets out of your top 50 could look like.

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Yeah, sure. Kyle, this is what as we said, we are remarkably excited about this addition of a specialty line of business. It’s been a clear solution for customers that’s been lacking out of our lineup for years. Not only from an expansion standpoint. I’ll say this gently, but Aries only has 17 locations. It’s a nice spread across the country, mostly the eastern seaboard, a bit in the upper Midwest, and then Washington and California. There will be significant greenfield expansion with the team, which the team has in the plans for the year. I think it’ll be a bit higher than what we’ve expressed in terms of overall greenfields as a result of Aries, as we just closed on the deal May 1st. This will range from mega projects where we have so much request and demand. Think back to the Investor Day in March.

You would have heard from Kyle talk about that slide 55 from the deck that talked so much about these specialty verticals that we have and the clear opportunity for adding a few there that we don’t quite yet represent. You would have remembered in the very early part of that presentation in March, where we talked about the typical structural drivers of this structural growth engine that we’re leading. One of the nuances or newer realities of that structural growth is customers are looking for a solutions provider with increased scale, increased breadth, increased depth, increased expertise in the offerings that we have. Aries is a perfect example of that. We think there are a lot of opportunities in that market to simply leverage our cross-selling platform.

You’ve kind of worked out now what the revenue is since we said it’s about 1% of the guide, that is a business that we have a clear line of sight to double in just a few years’ time by way of expansion, as I said. Also, some nice little tuck-ins that will go along with that as our platform acquisition.

Operator, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next question today is coming from Tami Zakaria from JPMorgan. Your line is now live.

Tami Zakaria, Analyst, JPMorgan: Hey, good morning. Thank you so much for taking my questions. I wanted to get some color on the rental revenue growth guide of 5%-8% for the year. Could you give us some insights on what that means in terms of specialty versus general rental?

Alexander Pease, Chief Financial Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: I think as we indicate, we don’t guide to the individual segments. As we indicated, really the strong growth that we see in specialty will likely continue, driven by non-construction and mega project activity. GT will continue to grow. There’s solid, stable growth in GT. Remember, in terms of the mix of business, GT is really where that exposure to the local non-residential construction piece plays out. GT will continue to face a bit of a mixed market. Its mega project activity will remain strong. Its large national and strategic accounts will remain strong. Its local non-residential construction market, we’re anticipating remains stable, but not back into growth mode. You’ll see a relative weighting towards specialty, which just to reemphasize the point, that will also impact the margin profile as we start talking about next year.

Tami Zakaria, Analyst, JPMorgan: Understood. That’s very helpful. My second question is, I was hoping to get some comments on the first quarter revenue and margin performance. Should we expect first quarter revenue growth and margin to be in the realm of the full year guide, which is 4.5%-7.5% revenue growth and EBITDA margin flattish?

Alexander Pease, Chief Financial Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Let me sort of explain how we expect the year to unfold. In terms of top-line growth, I think it’s fair to say we continue to expect growth in the quarterly sequence in line with the growth that we experienced, or the growth that we’re guiding to with normal seasonality taken into effect. In terms of margin progression, we expect margin progression to advance as we get into the back half of the year. That really is going to be bolstered by some of the cost sort of operating excellence initiatives that we have in place, as well as an anticipation that general tool growth will accelerate as we get into the back half of the year. Some of this mix effect that we’ve been talking about will likely mitigate. I’ll draw your attention to give you some confidence behind the guide.

I’ll draw your attention to the slide in the deck.

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Slide 11

Alexander Pease, Chief Financial Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: which is the fleet on rent slide. You’ll see the first couple of months of this year are certainly trending positive, which gives us some level of confidence, again, not only for the year but for the quarter.

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Thanks, Danny.

Operator, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next question today is coming from Katie Fletcher from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is now live.

Katie Fletcher, Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets: Hey, good morning, guys. I heard you mention, it sounds like you’re assuming pretty stable growth in the local accounts within the 2027 outlook. We’ve talked about this at length on other earnings calls, but now that we’re in an environment where rates are likely coming up rather than coming down, what do you think it will take to finally see an inflection with those customers?

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Yeah, Katie, first of all, I think in your question, you may have said that we’re expecting growth in that or some moderate growth in that throughout the year. Let’s be clear. We’re expecting it really to remain benign. Therefore, it’s in this sort of stable but flat environment for the year. If there were a surprise, that would be great. It’s not reflected in our rental revenue guide. You’re right. It’s why we put the Fed funds rate on the leading indicator slide. We do see interest rates higher for longer is what it feels, at least at the moment. At the same time, we are seeing really encouraging demand by way of these projects entering planning. Our experience has been over time, there is a very high correlation between the momentum index and what ultimately translates into starts.

What you’ll see, of course, in the starts forecast and the put in place forecast from Dodge, they’re not quite flipping that over into those put in place figures, but it’s something that we’ll be watching very closely. I will add, and Alex just talked about, the strength really and the resilience of the general tool business that is most reliant on that end market. What that tells us is the business, the team, they’re just winning more. They’re winning more in sort of a flattish local non-res environment. I also pointed out during the prepared remarks of what our view is of a very stable, a healthy supply and demand mix, which is also contributing. Another thing, just pointing out in terms of where some of that growth is coming from, because even when you look at local non-res, it’s not all created equal.

If you look at, for instance, we have for a long time always tracked our top 200 customers. Our top 200 customers these days make up about 25% of our rental revenue, and our top 200 customers are growing in the 13%-14% range year-over-year in 2026 as compared to obviously the overall growth that we saw in the business and also in general tools. Look, we will be the first to let you know if we see any sort of inflection point in that local non-res. For the time being in our guide, it is status quo.

Katie Fletcher, Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets: Okay. Thanks for the color there. Turning to M&A, can you just talk about some of the other areas for growth in the business that you could potentially target? I know power and HVAC has been really strong. Some of the other specialty solutions that you showed off at your Investor Day. Just give us a sense of what you’re looking towards as you think about more growth through acquisitions.

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Well, sure. I’ll refer you back to that slide 55 from the Investor Day. If you look at all of those lines of business, virtually every single one of those, we look for additional bolt-ons to add to that overall geographic solutions that we’re providing for our customers, density, and in some cases, a nuanced line that they have. If you take, for instance, some of the live events that Alex referred to, we did this great deal last year called ARX Perimeters, that has been a significant add-on to some of these live events that we’ve talked about and even into the mega project space. That is a great contributor to what ultimately folds into one of those other specialty lines. I don’t want to give away too much here.

I think you can use your imagination know that there is still a segment or two out there that we don’t have as part of our overall portfolio that ourselves and business development team are always exploring what those opportunities are. Rest assured, there is a robust pipeline that remains in terms of M&A landscape, our people are actively seeking additions that fold into one of our now lines of business or creates a complementary new line of business.

Operator, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next question today is coming from David Raso from Evercore ISI. Your line is now live.

David Raso, Analyst, Evercore ISI: Hi, thank you for the time. Trying to think about the margin structurally, really in the whole industry, but you in particular as well, with the ancillary revenue growth. Trying to think about, I know the return on capital, the return on investment on those services it is high. I appreciate that. The ability to push price or raise the margins on those revenues, because the more specialty is going to outgrow gen rent, gen tools, and I’m generalizing, but specialty also brings with it probably more ancillary revenues. It’s hard to see when we’re going to not have a negative headwind with that when it comes to the margin. Trying to understand the ability to raise price on those ancillary revenues to improve the margin.

Is it just the return on capital is just so strong, the industry is just accepting that’s all we can charge for ancillary revenues because everybody wants the higher return on capital? Trying to understand, because it just feels like it’s a trend that would just take a really strong local construction market recovery to not continue to have this negative mix unless we raise prices on the ancillary. Thanks.

Alexander Pease, Chief Financial Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Let me open it up and then Brendan will add some color if I miss anything. First, I want to underscore, we mentioned it at least half a dozen times in the call, but I think it’s important. There is a significant reversal of a provision from the balance sheet. That number is around $28 million. That explains around a third of the margin compression. I think as you’re thinking about it, you need to take that out of the equation. About another third of the margin compression was driven by this activity volume related cost, which again, as we get into higher growth and higher utilization, some of those volume related costs should mitigate as well. Really, the mix effect, you’re talking to keep it simple, you’re talking about a third of the overall compression. Let’s just calibrate on that point first.

Second of all, the ancillary piece, let’s break that down a little bit. The largest portion of that is erection and dismantling revenue. That will always be kind of lumpy. If you get a really big refinery overhaul, as an example, where you have a lot of scaffolding, that’s going to carry with it a lot of E&D revenue. When we had a lot of these live events with big power and HVAC contracts, and you’re pulling a lot of cable and you’re moving a lot of stuff in, that’s going to have a lot of E&D revenue. That’s really attractive. There’s no capital associated with that at all. It’s great ROI business, but it is a lower margin, call it 10%-15% or so. Next big bucket is going to be re-rental expense.

Re-rental, the easiest way to think about this is again, in the power and HVAC example, would be switchgear, where we don’t actually own that. We have a third party that we have a relationship with, and we obviously can’t charge the same margins that we would if we own the equipment. Now that’s really attractive stuff because to the prior question on M&A, where do you think one of our big fishing pools is as we think about businesses we’d like to own? It’s businesses where we have a high level of re-rental expense. That is sort of one of the ways we feed the funnel. That is the next bucket. Really the last big bucket is around fuel surcharges.

As you would expect when you have very elevated fuel expense, as we’ve seen the last six months since the war in Iran has sort of unfolded in the Strait of Hormuz. You would anticipate you have a lot higher revenue because you’re passing on that fuel expense, but you’re again, not able to charge quite as much. It doesn’t degrade margins. It’s just a narrower margin because of the high fuel expense. All of that to say, there’s nothing structural that’s going on, no structural degradation in the margin profile. Some of it’s a function of growth coming more from specialty than GT. That’s a good thing. That’s a high ROI business. It’s a high solution-oriented business. It’s a business that we can pass on rates. Some of it’s some of these other factors that I pointed to.

David Raso, Analyst, Evercore ISI: Okay. No, I appreciate it.

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Steve.

David Raso, Analyst, Evercore ISI: Yeah, go ahead.

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: I’ll just add. I would encourage you to, let’s pay attention as we go through the year of the segments themselves in terms of the margins. As we improve upon the compression we experienced in this current year, the year just gone by, and I’ll remind you that in the year prior, we actually progressed margins. We progressed margins, give or take 140 basis points in FY 2025. We gave up 210 basis points in the current year. Let’s watch those segments as they move, because that’s probably the more important part. When we win one of these projects that Alex was referring to, we celebrate that win. It’s good, profitable growth. However, to your point, our ability to be able to, which is actually part of this dynamic customer pricing program that we now have in 15 of our markets. It’s not just the rental rate.

It is also some of those ancillary lines such as transport, et cetera. The more momentum we gain around that, certainly that will be accretive to margin. Of course, the operational excellence initiatives that you would have seen in New York.

David Raso, Analyst, Evercore ISI: I appreciate the conversation. Thank you so much.

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Thanks, David.

Operator, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next question today is coming from Neil Tyler from Rothschild & Co. Redburn. Your line is now live.

Neil Tyler, Analyst, Rothschild & Co. Redburn: Good morning, guys. Thank you. Perhaps first question to pick up on your comments just then, Brendan, specifically within General Tool over the next 12 months, I appreciate that you don’t guide at either revenue or margin by segment, but should we assume the same sort of margin dynamics as you’re describing for the group within General Tool, and namely, by the end of the year that margins should be sort of flat to up compared to this year? I guess are we therefore sort of through the trough when it comes to the year-over-year margin dynamics? That’s the first question, please. In General Tool specifically.

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Neil, I think we would expect an inflection point as we progress through the year up for margins with General Tool as well. Yes.

Neil Tyler, Analyst, Rothschild & Co. Redburn: Great. Thank you. Just coming back to your comment on the funnel and the fact that sort of increased by 2.5 times in the space of a quarter. Can you just go back to perhaps how much the timing difference between those sort of large projects and what sort of level of costs you’re booking in Q4 compared to sort of quarterly run rate that you were booking previously? What typically would be the delay between those costs and the revenues coming through?

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Right. Just to be clear, as we load in, there are the costs you would expect associated with that. The real dynamic is this. We will load in, let’s just pick a mega project as a, for instance, sort of a mid-sized mega project where we may be targeting $45 million to $50 million of fleet cost on that project, and let’s just say we’re doing that with those seven or eight team members, mostly field service technicians and equipment rental specialists that go along with those projects. Early on, you will begin putting some of those assets on rent, and you’ll drive some billing revenue with that. However, it will be at a lower utilization appreciably than you will be in about month three, month four as you start to reach the crest of that project after our load-in.

You’ll go from, say, 30%-40% time utilization early on to 70%-80% time utilization as you reach that crest. That crest is going to last you two to three years, depending on the project. You’re still going to have the same seven or eight people or so on that site, so you really start to get some leverage from that. You will have some early on compression there, and we would have seen that in Q4. As we’ve just spoken to in terms of the way we think the margin dynamic plays through the year, we’ll see that improve as we get later in the year.

I think it’s also worth mentioning, to impart with your first question, remember these initiatives around market logistics that you got so much color on during our Investor Day and our market field services and market service operations. We have the ability to actually deliver for every 1% improvement, we have a $100 million opportunity to unlock from a revenue standpoint at really attractive margins. That incremental that we unlock comes at even better margins. Those are initiatives where we’re playing the long game and improving our processes, improving the service that we’re bringing to our customers, and ultimately make that turn from a margin standpoint.

Operator, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our final question today is coming from Allen Wells from Jefferies. Your line is now live.

Allen Wells, Analyst, Jefferies: Hey, good morning, Brendan. Good morning, Alex. Most of my question’s been answered, so just two quick clarification ones for me. Can I just check in on the event revenue? I think you called out $70 million. Can you confirm that was all in Q4 and largely kind of deemed as exceptional in nature? Given, I think you called out things like the World Cup, I’m assuming that there’ll be some impact in Q1 as well, if you potentially could quantify what you know there. That’s my first question. Secondly, just on the acquisition side, the comments you made on Reliant. You said it’d be about 1% impact on the revenue number in 2027, so call it about $100 plus million of revenue.

If you’ve paid $650 million for that 6.5x sales, is that the normal type of valuation for this type of business? Maybe just talk a little bit about how you think about valuation in these types of assets. Thank you.

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Yeah. Let me take your second first. I quoted you total rental revenue, not total revenue. It’s a much higher total revenue number as I would explained, it’s not the sort of rental revenue multiple that you alluded to. Just for sake of a follow-on question there, as you know, we don’t quote individual deal multiples instead. Every few years when we do an Investor Day, we unpack a few years’ worth of M&A and give the average multiple because all specialties and all businesses are not created equally, and therefore we value them differently from one to the next.

I think that Alex is a bit thinking I shouldn’t have said the $70 million number if for no other reason than he was not talking about Q4 to be clear, more anticipated revenue from a series of FIFAs, UFC fights, and other things that we are very active in in Q1.

Operator, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. We’ve reached the end of our question and answer session. I’d like to turn the floor back over for any further closing comments.

Brendan Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunbelt Rentals: Great. Thank you, operator, and thank you all for joining this morning. We look forward to speaking with you and giving you an update after our Q1 results. We will look forward to speaking with you in September.

Operator, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. That does conclude today’s teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time, and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.