Thompson Pump Sells Rental Operations and Related Assets to United Rentals
Thompson Pump & Mfg. Co. has sold its rental assets and related operations to the Fluid Solutions Group of United Rentals. Having divested itself from the direct rental business, Thompson Pump plans to invest in and grow its pump manufacturing operations, the core business that has made Thompson Pump one of the leading brands in the pump industry.
“This transaction allows us to focus intently on developing and manufacturing the industry’s best pumps and accessories and we are well-positioned for the next stage of our company’s evolution,” said company chairman Bill Thompson. “We will remain one of the leading pump manufacturers in the United States and internationally by providing new and innovative product development and unparalleled customer support.”
Thompson Pump is a family-owned company that will celebrate its 50th anniversary in business this year. Thompson is well respected worldwide for its heavy-duty lines of high quality, high-performance dewatering and construction pumps. It provides products and engineering expertise for a multitude of applications such as dewatering, sewer bypass, wastewater management, temporary and permanent standby requirements, water supply and flood control in the areas of public works, construction, oil and gas, mining and more.
“By focusing on product development, manufacturing operations and growing our distribution network – both nationally and internationally – we now have the opportunity to improve capacity, increase efficiency and to support our customers even better than before,” said Thompson.
Thompson added that current customers should expect a seamless transition of the rental business. “Many of the same people our customers have worked with locally over the years at Thompson Pump are now on the United Rentals team.”
Along with being a major manufacturer, Thompson Pump & Manufacturing has been a major player in pump rental with 20 direct Thompson Pump rental outlets. The company was ranked No. 53 in last year’s RER 100, reporting $49.4 million in 2017 rental volume. United Rentals, No. 1 on the RER 100, has been continually growing its pump rental specialty segment.
United Rentals has been growing its specialty rentals business even more quickly than its burgeoning general rentals business. In 2018, United acquired Baker Corp. which extended the depth and reach of its Fluid Solutions business. It also opened 30 additional specialty rental cold starts in 2018. President Matt Flannery told an investors conference call that combined United Rentals’ Trench, Power and Fluid Solutions businesses generated a 40-percent increase in revenue in 2018, with almost half of that coming from same-store growth.
Thompson Pump is based in Port Orange, Fla.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.