Ashtead Group Pretax Profit, Revenue Rises on North American Markets — Update

By Joe Hoppe

Ashtead Group's pretax profit rose together with rental revenue, driven predominately by robust North American end markets, though U.K. markets softened the company said Tuesday as it backed its overall view for fiscal 2024.

The London-listed equipment-rental group said pretax profit for the first quarter of fiscal 2024 was $584.6 million compared with $526.8 million a year before. This was particularly driven by the U.S. and Canadian markets, which reported profit margins of 29.9% and 21.8%, respectively.

Stripping out exceptional and other one-off items, underlying pretax profit for the quarter ended July 31 was $614.9 million compared with $554.7 million the year before.

Revenue rose to $2.70 billion from $2.26 billion, with rental revenue rising 14% to $2.38 billion. Within this, U.S. revenue rose 22% to $2.31 billion, Canada 16.5% to $159.7 million, and the U.K. 1% to $225.0 million.

Ashtead said it has clear momentum, with robust North American markets, supported in the U.S. by an increasing number of mega projects and recent legislative acts. Despite U.K. market conditions softening, it expects its overall performance to meet internal expectations.

For the full-year, the company backed its overall group rental revenue guidance of 13%-16%, and retained its U.S. and Canada guidance of 13-16% and 15-20% respectively. It however cut U.K. rental revenue guidance to 6-9%, from 10-13%.

"We are in a position of strength, with the operational flexibility and financial capacity to capitalize on the opportunities arising from these market conditions and ongoing structural change," the company said.

Shares at 0725 GMT were down 266.0 pence, or 4.9% at 5,202.0 pence.

Write to Joe Hoppe at joseph.hoppe@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 05, 2023 03:47 ET (07:47 GMT)

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