Cramo Boosts First Half Revenues, Divests Latvia and Kaliningrad Operations
European rental giant Cramo posted a 1.9-percent revenue increase in the first half of 2017, with €340.9 million compared to €334.5 million in the first half of 2016. The second quarter was basically flat, declining by less than 1 percent, to €178 million compared to €179.1 million a year ago.
During the second quarter, Cramo acquired the assets of Just Pavillon A/S, a Danish modular space provider. After the reporting period, Cramo divested its Danish equipment rental operations to Loxam A/S.
Also this month Cramo divested its operations in Latvia and Lakiningrad by selling SIA Cramo and Cramo Kaliningrad to AS Storent Investments.
“The decision to divest our operations in Latvia and Kaliningrad is in line with Cramo’s new strategy Shape and Share, aiming towards a leading position in all Cramo markets,” said Leif Gustafsson, president and CEO of Cramo Group. “Our performance in Latvia and Kaliningrad has not met our high expectations in terms of return on investment and profitability. We want to focus our investments in markets where we estimate to receive the highest returns in the long term.”
In regard to Cramo’s overall first half performance Gustafsson was upbeat.
“The market environment has remained favourable in both of our business divisions and good performance in equipment rental continued,” he said. “In the second quarter, sales grew in local currencies in equipment rental despite the negative impact of timing of Easter. In modular space, rental sales continued to increase compared to last year, however the growth was still below our expectations especially in Finland. Profitability improved in the equipment rental business division in all segments. In modular space, profitability improved from the first quarter, but was still on a lower level than last year. Strict actions to improve operative processes continued in order to secure better profitability going forward.”
Based in Vantaa, Finland, Cramo has operations in more than a dozen European countries.
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.