H&E Equipment Services Posts Essentially Flat Fourth Quarter Revenues; Increases Full Year Totals 3.2 Percent
Revenues were essentially flat for H&E Equipment Services in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to the fourth quarter of 2023. Total revenues were $384.1 million compared to $385.8 million in Q423, a 0.4-percent decrease. Net income totaled $32.8 million compared to $53.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, a 38.7-percent drop. Adjusted EBITDA dipped 5.6 percent to $174.9 million compared to $185.2 million in the prior year.
Total equipment rental revenues were $319.4 million compared to $316.9 million in the year-ago quarter, a 0.8-percent increase. Rental revenues were $283.0 million compared to $280.6 million in Q423, a 0.9-percent increase. Sales of rental equipment declined from $40.6 million a year ago to $28.4 million, a 30.1-percent decrease. Sales of new equipment totaled $20.5 million compared to $9.8 million a year ago, a 109.0-percent increase.
Average time utilization for the quarter was 66.4 percent, compared to 68.4 percent in the year-ago quarter. Average rental rates dipped 1.1 percent year over year and 0.3 percent on a sequential quarterly basis, excluding acquisitions completed within the past 12 months.
For the full year, total revenues were $1,516.6 million in 2024 compared with $1,469.2 million in 2023, a 3.2-percent increase. Equipment rentals in 2024 totaled $1,253.3 million, compared to $1,186.2 million in 2023, a 5.7-percent increase.
Sales of rental equipment decreased 15.7 percent to $139.2 million from $165.1 million in the previous year, while sales of new equipment increased 42.2 percent to $55.6 million compared to $39.1 million in 2023.
H&E Equipment Services reached an agreement to be acquired by Herc Rentals. The transaction is expected to be finalized in the coming weeks.
H&E Equipment Services, headquartered in Baton Rouge, La., is No. 6 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.