United Rentals' Private Equities Loss is an Investor's Gain

United Rentals (URI) is the first company
many commercial, industrial, utilities, municipalities, and homeowners
think of when they have large projects and need equipment and supplies
to complete the job. <!--more-->URI has rental/retail locations in the US, Canada,
and Mexico with nearly 700 locations. If you need to rent or purchase
equipment such as backhoes, forklifts, compressors, pumps, generators,
scissor lifts, boom lifts, pressure washers, water pumps, heaters, hand
tools and trench safety equipment, then URI is where you go. It offers
over 20K classes of rental equipment and services equipment.

URI
also trains customers in specialized work, and offers an entire line
of convenient supplies to its customers for their specific needs on
the job. Commercial business is 75% of their revenue, while industrial
is 15% and homeowners round out the last 10%. URI was a start-up business
10 years ago (founded in 1997) and has grown to a $3.6B+ per year business
through acquisitions and internal growth. They compete in a highly fragmented
business and have the #1 market share in North America with only 7%
(This means lots of opportunity for growth).