Canada

Canada remains a relatively new and growing market for us. The overall rental market is less than a tenth of the size of the US. But in the same way that the US has experienced structural growth as more and more types of equipment are rented for different applications, we expect similar trends in Canada.

Our share of the Canadian rental market is around 9%. There is plenty of scope to develop this in the same way as in the US and we are growing rapidly. We are seeing continued market growth in 2024 and S&P Global Market Intelligence predicts Canadian rental revenue to grow 7% in 2024, 7% in 2025 and 5% 2026. We anticipate growing more rapidly as we take market share and broaden our offering.

Our original Canadian business goes from strength to strength as it takes advantage of its increasing scale and breadth of product offering as we expand our Specialty businesses and look to build out our clusters and increase market density in that market. In contrast, our Film & TV business was impacted significantly by the writer’s and actor’s strikes in the North American film and television industry, which persisted for longer than we anticipated and were only resolved in December 2023. This also had some impact on the rest of the Canadian business given our success in cross selling our more traditional rental product into the film and TV space, which is one of our competitive advantages in the market.

In 2023/24, we grew to 135 locations across Canada. We have a significant presence in Ontario and are now present in eight provinces. The rental market has, historically, been construction focused, but we continue to develop new markets. We began by introducing General Tool businesses into the Canadian market but have subsequently added Specialty lines of business. Contributing to growth and positioning for further success was the June acquisition of Loue Froid, a leading provider of Power & HVAC rental solutions with four locations across Canada, and a base in Montreal. As is often the case with new acquisitions, there are cross-selling opportunities inherent in this deal, and of course the expansion of our business in the Quebec market.

Over time we would expect our Canadian market share to be similar to that in the US.