Good morning, and thank you for joining our trading update call. With me on the line are Michael Pratt and Will Shaw. Before getting into the Q&A, I'll briefly cover the current and anticipated trading as outlined in this morning's update and add some end market color. We will, on December fifth, announce another record quarter and first half results, with strong rental revenue and EBITDA growth of 13% and 15% respectively.
This performance is driven by strength in our North American end markets, the ongoing momentum and execution in our business as we follow our Sunbelt 3.0 playbook, and the very clear structural progression being realized in our industry. The rental rate environment continues to be strong, demonstrating one of the outputs of structural progression in the business, now very much demonstrating the structure and discipline as business service companies do.
Each of these drivers remains fully intact, with all signs and relevant forecasts supporting a continuation through the year and beyond. Combining these realities with the specific current year circumstances surrounding absence of natural disaster and the prolonged writers and actors strikes, puts us in a position to modestly lower our rental revenue guidance for the year to a still strong 11%-13% growth at the group and U.S. levels.
This amounts to rental revenues of roughly $200 million-$250 million on $10 billion in rental revenues. That clarity, the lack of last year's levels of hurricane, wildfire, and other extreme weather events, with the assumption this continues through the balance of the year, coupled with the film and TV impact, amounts to between $140 million and $150 million.
In addition, there's a carry forward of somewhat lower absorption of fleet landings than we anticipated, which is reflected in today's guidance and consistent with what has been covered more broadly in the industry. Let me be clear, this is not a sign of lack of demand. Rather, fleet investment to fuel new and ongoing mega project wins, in addition to ordinary fleet planning for our existing and new branch location network.
What one should take away from today's update is that the business continues to perform very well in strong end markets and is actively leveraging the very tangible tailwinds of structural progression in our business and industry. And for the immediate period ahead, we're just growing slightly less than we would have done, not for the specific circumstances we've covered today. It is for these reasons we continue to look to the future with confidence. With that, Laura, please open the line for questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. We'll now take our first question from Suhasini at Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Just three for me, please. You indicated that your new guidance incorporates not only the reduction in lower Emergency Response. Second aspect is the writer strike and actor strike impact. And the third one was actually lower absorption of Fleet Landings. Just don't understand what's driving that lower absorption of Fleet Landings. I appreciate that maybe, you know, because the new guidance implies a slower growth in second half of the year versus first half. So what's driving that? Is there any key end market that's driving the change? The second one, is there any change in the drop-through rates to EBITDA, given the lower revenue guidance change? And the third one is on your CapEx guidance, which has remained unchanged at this point in time. Why is that, given the revenue guidance change, is...
Why haven't you reduced the CapEx guidance and therefore protect the free cash flow, something that you managed to do in the past? If anything has changed, should we be anticipating any increased sale of used equipment, for example, to readdress the balance? Thank you.
Yeah, thank you. I'll address those. First of all, to be clear, as I've said in the opening remarks, this is not an end market driver, absent those very specific items that we would have listed. If you think about this in terms of that piece in terms of absorption, it's really comes down to one word, which is just fleet. We have a bit more fleet that will be absorbed at high utilization levels, while at the same time, the aged fleet will be sold. So consider that transitory, if you will. And to do that, you have to think about the supply chain circumstances. Yes, they have improved, particularly as it relates to the OEMs meeting delivery commitments, e.g., time and quantity.
However, in many instances, lead times do remain longer than what we would have experienced in, say, pre-pandemic, and there does not seem to be much latent capacity in OEM production capabilities. So this still influences our fleet planning, whereas in ordinary course, which we very much do today, we meticulously plan for our fleet needs, and that's both replacement and growth for our location network, as well as built-in agility to accommodate for some of the anticipated mega project wins. And the other thing, too, to consider in that absorption is literally the profile of mega projects. It is different than, or they are different than the smaller or more ordinary commercial projects. However, as that absorption improves, which it will do, it will yield a larger and longer crest. So it has nothing to do with sort of end market movements.
In terms of drop-through, we'll touch on full year drop-through on December fifth, but as a for instance, Q2 drop through in the U.S. was a very strong 53%. In terms of CapEx and not changing the guidance, the first reason why we're not changing the guidance is, this is not an end market sort of driven takedown or slightly takedown in the rental revenue. The CapEx that we have coming in our, coming our direction is indeed needed for the business. One thing I think it's important that everyone understand, understands. With this emergence, if you will, and ongoing growth in that mega project arena, what you shouldn't be doing, yes, you should have agility, but what you shouldn't be doing is not feeding your, your, your, your core, your existing brick-and-mortar network, where there still remains very high demand.
You don't wanna sell assets that are ready for replacement with new assets heading in their direction and divert those to a mega project, because you're just going to, over time, degrade, if you will, that core. So what we're doing here really is we're just running the business, taking advantage of a strong end market and one that has certainly good forecast in the years to come. And so I think that addresses all of your questions, unless you think I've missed any.
No, that's very clear. Thank you. But and just to clarify, this feels more like a shift in the phasing of the revenues rather than an abrupt change in the end market growth rate. Is that the way to put it?
Yeah, it's just absorption. That's what it is. And, you know, we fully expect that we... Look, I should have mentioned, we are running at really high time utilization levels. We're just running a bit below where we thought we would, coming off of almost anomalous years over the last two years. But when we look at the time utilization levels today, historically, when you set aside the last two years, we would be, you know, top one or two years over the last 10 years.
That's very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question from Karl Green at RBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks very much. Just a couple of follow-ups from me, please. The first one, and apologies if you've said this, it's early Monday morning, my brain is probably not fully in gear. Just can I clarify just how big the revenue streams are from Emergency Response and then the Film and TV streams? And then what the variance you're expecting this year is. So the actual prior year context, full year, and then what the variance you're expecting for this year. That's the first question. And then the second question, again, something which you've been pretty adept at historically is, you know, whenever there's been slight lumps and bumps on the underlying revenue, you often compensate for that through bolt-on M&A. Is there any comment you can make just about what's happening on the latest bolt-on M&A activity, please?
Sure. Well, to break down that 140-150, I would've talked about in revenues, in the opening comments, it's about $100 million as it relates to the year-on-year, natural disasters, hurricane, winter freeze, wildfires, et cetera, that we would have enjoyed last year. And for the record, we always flag that, that those are extraordinarily large periods, and we just happen to have had in 2020, 2021, and 2022, large years as it relates to that. When it comes to Film and TV, we're, we'll see an absence of about $50 million in revenue. One big piece of that, of course, coming from the actual Film and TV business directly.
And then there is some contagion, if you will, that comes by way of our other business lines, whether it be our general tool business or the aerial work platform, power, HVAC, climate, et cetera, that also sells or cross-sells into those markets. And that's in Canada for sure, but it's also in the U.S. and markets like New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, New Orleans, and to some degree in Los Angeles. So that's sort of that breakdown, if you will, and that really amounts for the vast majority of what we're sort of taking down at the moment.
From a bolt-on standpoint, what we don't do is go out and do deals to bridge a gap. You know, as I've said a few times here, we just run the business. You know, there is remaining very much so a robust runway for bolt-on M&A, but we deal with those as we get to those conversations or as deals come out. So there's no real change in trajectory in that regard.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. We'll now move on to our next question from Allen Wells at Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, gentlemen. Just a couple of follow-ups from me. Firstly, just on the emergency response side, sorry. I noticed it just wasn't called out by your peer URI, which obviously reiterated guidance back in end of last month. I mean, is there any nuances there that we need to be mindful of? I know Cat might be a little bit more exposed, but maybe you can just kind of comment why you might be more impacted than those guys.
And then secondly, just on the interest and depreciation guidance was obviously up again. I think we increased that at Q1 as well. Sorry if I missed it. Is that more linked to the fleet pulled forward? That the interest and depreciation has gone up, or is that more on phasing there, or is that more linked to potentially kind of bolt-on M&A and what else is going on around that part of the business? Thank you.
Yeah, yeah, I'll take the first and then turn the second over to Michael. Emergency response, certainly, this is something that for years and years as a business, we have targeted, and we are quite good at it. So certainly, you know, I'm not here to speak for URI. I will say comfortably that proportionally it is a larger part of our go-to-market strategy. We're not alone in terms of having mentioned that there will be some others, and again, I won't call them out by name... who have mentioned the fact that last year, and remember too, there's quarterly recalendar, quarterly reporters and us in our fiscal year. So you know, this, to be clear, in terms of, you know, when we sort of realize that part of the revenue, it doesn't come until October.
So the quarter, you know, through October, would've shown no blemish, if you will, in August or September. That would begin in October and sort of carry on through December, January. So I think that's part of the reason, but again, this is something that we're happy to, you know, continue to pursue, and then I'll turn that over, if that's clear enough, to Michael Allen, interest and appreciation.
Yeah, Alan, yes, you're right. There is a degree of commonality between the two, because the increased depreciation is due to a larger fleet, which has sort of two components. Yes, it's bolt-on M&A, but it's then also the fleet landings that we've talked about. And that has a knock-on effect on interest. So it's, you know, the fleet that comes in from the acquisition, the larger fleet from the fleet landing, and there's also a piece of rate in there compared with where we were back at Q1 and then certainly earlier in the year. So there's... The rate piece is different. The other two bits are effectively interrelated.
So, there isn't one part that's stronger than the other in terms of driving that increase. It's kind of a combination of all three. Is that fair?
Oh, sorry, on depreciation?
Yeah, on the depreciation side, like is it more M&A linked bolt-on, or is it more fleet timing linked in terms of why that number is?
I don't want to say it's evenly split, but it's not far. It's a bit of both, is the honest answer.
Okay.
See, we just said, so as a combination of landings and fleet acquired through acquisition, we just ended up with a higher average fleet size for the rest of the year than we had previously.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. And we'll now take our next question from James Rose at Barclays. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Morning, guys. Just a quick one on mega projects. Are you seeing any slips in sort of the timing for those? Are they taking longer to get up to speed than you expected? Is there any change at all in your take on mega projects for this year and going into next? Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, James. The only change, if you will, in Mega Projects, would be more of them. And it's something that we've flagged all along here. They just have that different profile, as I would have mentioned. Meaning you load in sort of day one, more fleet than the project may need, but it doesn't mean that they don't want that. So you sort of load in, whether it be $20 million or $40 million of fleet on these Mega Projects, which will grow over time. But the distance between starting the project and that crest is far longer than it is on other projects. However, where you get the big benefit is, when you do approach that crest, you get a very long crest. So no change in that whatsoever.
It's just the way that these mega projects are. And as I said, there's no change whatsoever in terms of quantum of projects out there. Indeed, what we're finding is, it's virtually daily when there's another mega project that we're in discussions about. So it's a very strong pipeline.
Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll now move on to our next question from Daniel Johansson at Banktech]. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you very much for taking my question, and perhaps this is to simplify too much, but thinking about the CapEx, how far away are you from considering to maybe cap it?
Yeah, I mean, we are, we're not cutting CapEx for this fiscal year. You know, we always dynamically, as best we can, if you will, massage or modify precision in those landings based on OEM flexibility. You know, that fleet, which we will land this year, will indeed ultimately be absorbed based on our networks and the opportunities that we have for this fleet. You know, it's very precise in terms of our fleet planning.
And then what we will do as we get through sort of this winter, we will embark on our fleet planning for next fiscal year, and we'll take into account what we're seeing in terms of activity levels, what the needs are from a replacement standpoint, what our plan is in terms of greenfield expansion, et cetera. But we would have to see degradation in our end markets in order to begin to change what our overall CapEx plans are.
Okay. And if you were to, you know, embark on such a route, are you able to significantly cut CapEx this fiscal year, given the lead times and everything that has had... You know, we had a big COVID impact on backlogs along and all of that with the OEs?
Yeah, I mean, there would be some degree of flexibility, you know, late Q4 in terms of cancellations. But, you know, when it comes to what you really do, how you run the business is, you know, at that stage, if you find at some stage, if you find less need, you work that into your next year's plan. So if I landed, you know, 10,000-pound telehandlers in Miami, late Q4, and there were five machines that are up for replacement in Q1 next year, that we all of a sudden decide we don't need, then I'll use some of the telehandlers I landed in Q4 in order to fuel or satisfy the need for replacement in Q1.
So, one must look at this over a few quarters' time when it comes to when that circumstance, which we're not seeing today, arises, that you're sort of setting the stage for here. That's how you handle it.
Okay, thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you. We have no further questions in the queue currently. As a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. We'll take our next question from Lush at JP Morgan. Your line is open, please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for letting me get the questions. The first just on rental rates. I guess you're not the only ones who've said that you've had more fleet come in than expected in the quarter. I guess, is there any sort of change on your stance there for the year?
As I would've said in my opening remarks, rental rate progression remains strong. You know, year on year, we see good gains, and we will yield that for the entire year. You know, I would have also pointed to, in the opening remarks, just this structural progression and that being a hallmark of tangibly getting to that point, both in terms of rental penetration, but also the second piece of the big getting bigger and then driving more discipline around rates. You know, I see years ahead of rate being far more mechanical and far more de-linked with time utilization.
Frankly, we've seen that in the industry for the last five quarters, where time utilization has been lower, however, rates have progressed, and we expect that to be very much the same as we go forward.
Okay. Thank you. And the second one on some of the actors and writers' strike, not as close to it as you guys are, but I think the actors strike has just ended. Would you typically see, like, a big resurgence in activity, so you sort of make up for some of that lost activity, or how does that typically sort of play out?
No, you're exactly right. You know, you say it's over. I would say, given how long this has gone on, I'm not going to sort of say it is over until there is a contract signed, and that is scheduled for the 4th of December. So I'll be happy to give you an update on that on the 5th of December with our half year results. But yes, we would fully expect, not terribly different than the pandemic, to see a resurgence. The timing's not the best, given we're in the holiday season when that gets signed, and then you get into sort of ... So we're really expecting to see that come through in our Q4, so February through April, and then, of course, pick up on that momentum as we enter next year.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll now move on to our next question from Will Kirkness at Société Générale. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Morning. Thanks very much. Just two quick ones, hopefully. Firstly, on monthly trends, if you're happy to talk about, and just August was +15, so I guess October sort of maybe missing a digit. Perhaps you can just help there. And then, in the secondhand markets, just wondered how used pricing has held up. I think some of your peers have talked about channel mix, but just wondered, particularly in October, whether you've seen any maybe softness on the disposable pricing. Thanks.
Yeah, I can ... I know Michael's digging out the, sequential last month, so I'll, I'll let him answer that. But when it comes to secondhand markets, I would characterize them as still strong, very strong actually, historically speaking, but not quite as, over the top as they were, previously. But there was nothing notable in terms of the month of October or September. It's been more, you know, rather consistent as we've gone throughout the year. So still a perfectly liquid market.
Yeah, there is some channel mix between what you do in auction, retail, and wholesale, but really what we focus on there is, Will, and I think you certainly know this from conversations in the past, you know, it's just about selling the fleet that you have when it reaches that useful life. And there's no doubt about it, just given what the supply chain constraints were for quite some time through and following the pandemic, you know, there's a bit of a buildup there in fleet. And considering how much fleet is getting in the secondhand market and how good those values still are is a very positive sign. You know, remember, one of the leading really factors when it comes to what that value looks like over time is: What is the cost to buy a new one?
That's exactly what we're seeing hold true. Given new equipment is so much more expensive than it was seven, eight years ago, if you will, that factors into that secondhand market. But I'll, I'll open it to Michael to touch on your second point. Your first rather.
Yeah, and obviously, we're speaking in a habit of giving monthly, monthly trends, et cetera. But suffice to say, what we saw, the drop off we saw was, when we sort of got to October, and, October's year-over-year was, nine to 10% .
Okay, clear. Perfect. Thank you so much. Appreciate that.
Thanks, Will. I'm sorry, Will, let me just add on that, and actually that was predominantly, you know, the real driver of that, which it goes to the Emergency Response side of stuff, with our specialty businesses, so the power, the climate, that side of things. Where the general tool business was pretty consistent with the rest of the months this year to date.
Okay, fair. Thanks.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question from Arnaud Lehmann at Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. One question left from me, please. So your EBITDA guidance a bit lower, your financing costs are a bit higher, and your CapEx is unchanged. So I guess we're gonna get a bit less operating cash flow, and free cash flow as well. Where would you expect the net debt to land? And does this change in guidance have implications for your buybacks or dividend plans? Thank you.
Yeah, we'll update that. We'll give better guidance when we, you know, in a couple of weeks' time. But you're right, the lower, a little bit less EBITDA interest will reduce free cash flow guidance. We'll still work within the same leverage range, you know, as we've talked about. What you will find is, and this isn't totally unexpected from a, from internally, we will be at about 1.8 at October. Now we'd expect that to come down during the second half of the year. Our buybacks will be at a similar sort of level. Or, you know, we've been doing a very low level of buybacks because of the opportunities of deploying fleet and volatile M&A.
As we've always said, you know, buybacks are the, you know, almost the balancing figure, and there's still no real change to that preference. We do still prefer that lower half of the range. And so you'll see that 1.8 will sort of return to that sort of level as we go through the second half.
Okay, thank you very much. And if I may, just a quick one to finish. I guess you're working on your Sunbelt 4.0 plans for next year. Are there any reason to be a bit more cautious heading into those plans? Thank you.
Well, it will be Sunbelt 4.0, but no, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that there's any reason to be more cautious. I think you will see that we will put out a ambitious but realizable strategic growth plan. But as we always do, we assess the end markets, and we take a view on that as we put together those plans. But I think that will be universally very well accepted on the 13th of April when we launch that.
Thank you so much.
There are no further questions in queue. I will now hand it back to Brendan for closing remarks. Thank you.
Great. Thank you for taking the time this morning, everyone. As we've said, we will give a more thorough update and, along with our record results, as we've said, for Q2 and a half on December 5th, and we look forward to speaking with all of you then. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. Bye-bye. You may now disconnect.