Ashtead Group PLC Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Annelies Judith Godelieve Vermeulen - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Hi, good morning, Brendan. Good morning, Michael, and then many congratulations on your retirement and Michael and I have three questions, please. Firstly, could you give an update on the scaffolding customer if there's any timing or any sort of update on the resolution and the timing of that, if you have any visibility? And then secondly, on the drop through, which is very good in the first quarter, could you share your thoughts on that your expectations for the full year and how you expect that progress through the quarters? And then lastly, on Canada, you mentioned and you assume the new this is the new normal for film and TV world. And I'm just wondering, does that leave you with any excess fleet in Canada? I assume some of the equipment can be redeployed to other end markets, but I also imagine there some film and TV specific equipment. So how are you managing that?

Question: Lush Mahendrarajah - JP Morgan - Analyst : Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions and my congratulations on your upcoming retirement and a couple from me, please. First, just local construction. I guess, is that sort of playing out how you anticipated or sort of how you guide with the full-year results or is it sort of worsened since then? And then I guess tied to that and some of your sort of smaller competitors, you don't quite have the benefit of megaprojects and specialty like, you know, they've been a bit more rational around pricing on some of those local contracts. And so that's the first question. And then the second one is just on that drop-through again, I appreciate it's going to be higher this year for a number of factors. But when the E&D does come back, would we need to think of drop-through, but below [50]. So all cannot sustain school about 50 times and going forward when that comes back as well. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 03, 2024 / 9:00AM, AHT.L - Q1 2025 Ashtead Group PLC Earnings Call

Question: Suhasini Varanasi - Goldman Sachs Group - Analyst : Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. And just a couple from me please. You've mentioned that you've had lower utilization on the larger fleet in this set of results. Can you maybe talk about the need to balance CapEx to not get the utilization up to the rest of the year. What are your plans on this belief in modifying your CapEx guidance, for example? Second one is maybe could you just talk about the quarter. You had mentioned at the time of the full-year results, how trends were in May. Maybe if you could comment on, you know, June, July, August, and how you see the next quarter versus the second half of fiscal '25? Thank you. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 03, 2024 / 9:00AM, AHT.L - Q1 2025 Ashtead Group PLC Earnings Call

Question: Rory Edward McKenzie - UBS Investment Bank - Analyst : Good morning. It's have already had two questions, please. Firstly, on rental rates sounds like best low single digits compared to last year and it continues to progress. Can you just talk more about the range of that across your businesses, for example, what's that within specialties, the local general tool business and mega projects and any regions that stand out one way or another? Then secondly, rather than focusing on drop-through on stores. Question about the cost base and the cost side. I think that apart from the pandemic, this is the first time 2010, you've been reducing headcount. And I think Page 27 shows that US headcount is now down about 7% from the January. So can you talk more about where and how you've been doing that not rightsizing and within the business and what the outlook is over the rest this year? Thank you.

Question: Arnaud Lehmann Lehmann - Bank of America Securities - Analyst : Thank you very much. Good morning, gentlemen. I have three. That's okay. Firstly, a very strong specialty in the quarter was there any support from the hurricanes, obviously to be the required hurricane season so far. The second question is on your equipment sale. We knew it would come down, but I think it came down a bit more than I expected in the first quarter. Maybe could we have a guidance for the full year or is Q1 a good indication of what to expect going forward? And lastly, obviously, congratulations to Michael for his upcoming retirement. Could you give us a bit of color on that on the selection of [Alex Pease] as the new here for did you consider joined the Board consider internal options and considering Alex will be, I believe, based in the US. Does that change anything in terms of the organization? Thank you very much.

Question: Neil Christopher Tyler - Redburn - Analyst : Good morning, Brendon, Mike, two from me, please. And firstly, I'm sticking with CapEx question. If you take the sort of midpoint of your rental revenue guidance and the low end of the CapEx guidance. I think you end up with sort of OEC value growth of about 3.5% in volume growth or perhaps 2%, does that take you by the end of this fiscal year to us at a time utilization situation? Is it that you're comfortable with sort of back on an even keel? Or do you think there's scope through the Ford auto remainder timeframe to to push time utilization back up and further than that point. And then second question on the growth components and sort of trying trying to tease out mega projects as on what those two are currently, I'm active on, obviously, we've heard some that have broken ground and making sort of slower progress than expected, presumably some that started in 2021, 2022 and a tailing tailing off a bit so on those projects that you're currently working on, I appreciate it is sort of difficult if you bundle it together, but they still able to deliver a net positive revenue contribution over the coming 12 months? Or do you need new starts for this mega project piece of the revenue [pie] to grow from here?

Question: Karl Green - RBC Capital Markets - Analyst : Yes, thanks. Good morning. A couple of questions from me on the comments you made about the right discipline amongst the smaller mid-sized players, not either keeping an eye on what you're doing. As you've already said. I mean, just thinking about squaring circle there where there's clearly high inventories in some of the auction channels. They are clearly at lower price levels. It's finding a home. It's kind of the balancing part of the equation. The fact that actually ownership is slightly ticking up because I think some of the rails and [Ritchie dates] were suggesting a lot of the equipment is actually staying with you asked about them going overseas, as is the case previous downturn. So is that the right way to think about it? That would be the first question and then the second question then to just going back to that very high drop-through at 69%, just in terms of the delta between, say, the mid [50s] and that 69%. Is it fair to say that the vast majority came from that lower E&D revenue base? Or was it the fact that you have you? And I'm just going on in terms of title costs, headcount?

Question: Karl Green - RBC Capital Markets - Analyst : Just to follow up on the first question, that's okay. Kind of [fake] indication percentage of OEC you're seeing on your used equipment sales just year on year, how that's trended just because Essentis globalization [is useful].

Question: Allen David Wells - Jefferies LLC - Analyst : Hi. Good morning, guys. Just it just takes me, most of mine have been asked. I'm in terms of the US rental growth. I'm obviously we've seen a slight sequential slowdown into the fourth quarter, your guidance is 47%. Can you just talk a little bit about how you, at least at this stage in the year, see the shape of growth through the rest of the year, like I guess, most people would have expected to see a general easing in terms of the trends, but also mindful of easing comps as we move through the year and actually the fact that the organic growth number that you printed for stable, that's (technical difficulty)

Question: Allen David Wells - Jefferies LLC - Analyst : And then just a quick kind of follow-up on [Ray] as well. And obviously, you guys talked about it, it's still progressing, but could you maybe just talk about how that looks sequentially, just directionally, are you still seeing I guess we are still seeing inflation in the cost base, but inflation is probably lower than it was quarter or two ago. So we use the rate environment still slightly easing as you move through, benefited still progressing positively to the industry. Data seems to suggest that that I see, but I just wonder what you guys are seeing internally.

Question: Will Kirkness - Bernstein SG - Analyst : Thanks, morning. And just to rephrase, just wondered if you could cut back some general to plus 3% Any way to give us a bit more color. Sounds like can it might be sort of mostly right such that if you could break that down maybe by regions or kind of segments? And then secondly, just on the UK, I think you said for a while, rates already progressing where you'd like them to be. I just wondered what the impediment is and what kind of the what actions you can take there. Thanks.

Question: Mark Howson - Dowgate Capital - Analyst : Good morning, gentlemen. Just on a couple of questions on and bolt-on acquisitions. Obviously, we focus very much on CapEx and how that's rolling out yourself and the industry as you stand, the prices of bolt-ons. It's a [ritual] probably just a bit too much to bear at this point in the cycle. Somebody might want to do when things if things do become tougher, it's easy to pick things up? Or is it as a reflection of that? So is it just a question of something else?

Question: Mark Howson - Dowgate Capital - Analyst : And just complaints from your official just on the election front, you've seen much difference between what Kamala Harris's view on things that the inflation Reduction Act and infrastructure versus Jeo Bidden, you know, the difference and Trump and in [Iowa drill], but some are you seeing any between Harrison button in terms of how the outlook may change.

Question: Mark Howson - Dowgate Capital - Analyst : The other one for me to say, well done to Michael Kneeland an excellent job over the years. So thank you very much.

Question: Kevin Fletcher - KeyBanc Capital Markets - Analyst : Hey, good morning. And just one question for me. You talked about the normalizing environment in the film and TV business and how you're thinking about that as the new normal going forward just wondering if that changes your thoughts on that business in general or the Canadian markets, if you see any sort of shift in strategy going forward to adjust to this new normalizing environment.