Canadian Cat Dealer Toromont Posts Second Quarter Revenue Hike
Canadian Caterpillar dealer Toromont posted CDN $510.7 million (about U.S. $387 million) in second quarter revenue, compared to $484.5 million in the second quarter of 2015, a 5.4-percent increase. For the first six months of 2016, Toromont posted $888.4 million compared to $824.7 million in the same period of 2015, a 7.7-percent hike.
For Toromont’s Equipment Group, the increase was about 3 percent to $441.7 million for the second quarter because of higher product support and used equipment revenues, partially offset by lower new equipment sales. Rental markets for Toromont and Battlefield Equipment, its Cat Rental Store operation, improved after a weak first quarter.
Revenues for the Equipment Group increased 6 percent to $769.3 million for the first six months of the year. Equipment sales increased $13.5 million or 3 percent because of strong used equipment sales offsetting lower new equipment sales and rentals.
“We are encouraged by the long-term outlook for infrastructure spending,” said Toromont CEO Scott Medhurst. “At the same time, we note that our Equipment Group has experienced restrained capital spending by customers, which has contributed to current softness in many markets that we serve. Excess inventories industry-wide, base-metals pricing weakness and a sluggish economic backdrop pose challenges to our operating environment.”
Toromont owns the Caterpillar dealership in Ontario, Manitoba, Nunavut, Newfoundland and most of Labrador. Battlefield Equipment is No. 22 on the RER 100.
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.