Earnings Labs

United Rentals, Inc. (URI)

Q1 2012 Earnings Call· Wed, Apr 18, 2012

$960.27

+0.04%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-1.31%

1 Week

+0.52%

1 Month

-27.76%

vs S&P

-21.36%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and welcome to United Rentals First Quarter 2012 Investor Conference Call. Please be advised that this call is being recorded. Before we begin, note that the company’s press release, comments made on today’s call, and responses to your questions contain forward-looking statements. The company’s business and operations are subject to a variety of risk and uncertainties many of which are beyond its control and consequently actual results may differ materially from those projected. A summary of these uncertainties is included in the Safe Harbor statement contained in the release. For a more complete description of these and other possible risks, please refer to the company’s annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2011, as well as subsequent filings with the SEC. You can access these filings on the company’s website at www.ur.com. Please note that United Rentals has no obligation and makes no commitment to update or publicly release any revisions to forward-looking statements in order to reflect new information or subsequent events, circumstances or changes in expectations. You should also note that today’s call will include references to free cash flow, adjusted EPS, EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA, each of which is a non-GAAP term. Speaking today for United Rentals is Michael Kneeland, Chief Executive Officer and William Plummer, Chief Financial Officer and Matt Flannery, Executive Vice President - Operations and Sales. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Kneeland. Mr. Kneeland, you may begin.

Michael Kneeland

Management

Thanks operator. Good morning, everyone and welcome. With me today, is our CFO, Bill Plummer, Matt Flannery, our Executive Vice President of Operations and Sales and other members of our senior management team. Matt has been leading the integration planning for our merger with RSC and I have asked him to share some details about that process, so I have three speakers this morning. But first I want to spend a few minutes on the quarter and the closing of the transaction. So I’ll start with the results. You saw the numbers we reported last night. We had a very good quarter, we showed 21% growth in rental revenues and realized $231 million of adjusted EBITDA in our slowest seasonal quarter. In fact our performance surpassed all prior first quarters with record time utilization, record fleet growth and record adjusted EBITDA and a record margin. Once again we drove the profitable growth faster than the construction recovery and this time we got some modest help, from the environment. Spending our non-residential construction appears to be running year over year. Now, I have to wait for the March numbers to see of that holds true. And the architecture billing index, which has remained above 50 for the commercial and industrial sector for 7 straight months and this morning the ABI reported that the March index for our sector was 56. So, as you know we felt good about 2012 going into this year and we are just as bullish now and even more confident about our outlook. We put $300 million of gross CapEx into the market in the first three months, because we saw demand and as a result show we didn’t just grow our fleet, we put it on at rent, at good margins. Our rates improved more than…

Matt Flannery

Management

Great, thanks Mike and good morning everyone. When the senior leadership teams of both RSC and United Rentals got together in early January, we were all ready in complete agreement about what would be our guiding principles for the integration process. These three principles were defined early on, as part of the decision to combine the operations. First, we would do view any and all changes through the eyes of the customer. Any lapse in customer service would be unacceptable. Second, we would be diligent about making sure we created the best in class organization for the new United Rentals. We wanted to make sure we retained the top talent and continued on with the best process for each business function. And third we committed to follow the money and look hard for synergy opportunities along every step of building our new organization. I would like to take a minute to tell you all how we’ve gone about this process. When Mike asked me to lead this integration, the first challenge that I confronted was at the most fundamental level. How can we pull together an integration team from both organizations without hurting the base business? Well, as you all read last night, both companies stayed on-track with strong first quarter performances despite the fact that we’ve had over 100 people deeply involved in the integration planning and thousands of others more than little curious about the process. We accomplished this through the efforts of our align management as well as productive communication from both (inaudible). From an integration process perspective, we organized our efforts into 14 functional and strategic teams. All focused on a specific area of the business. These teams have a total of 25 sub teams working to assist them. Each team is jointly led by the…

William Plummer

Management

Alright, thanks Matt and good morning to everyone. In the spirit of saving more time for Q&A my comments would be briefer than normal and let me start by reminding everyone of the change that we made in some of the key metrics that I’ll be touching on here this morning. Effective, that the beginning of this year we adopted the ARA methodology for calculating certain key metrics, they include rental rates, time utilization, dollar utilization and fleet age. So, all my comments about the metrics here will be on the new ARA basis and year-over-year comparisons will have the prior period adjusted as well. So, let me start with rental revenue as always very strong quarter rental revenue as Mike pointed out. Rental revenues up 20.5% year-over-year and we had strong contributions from both rate and volume in that number Rental rates were up 6.3% for the quarter over the prior year and were on a sequential basis essentially flat, they were down 0.08%, so let’s call that flat for argument sake. So all-in-all the rate environment was solid and fully consistent with what we expected for the early part of the year and indeed fully consistent with the 5% target that we’ve laid out for the full year. Volume was also strong. We were up 18% year-over-year in OEC on rent, up to $2.6 billion of OEC on rent, a very strong number for the first quarter. It obviously reflects the size of our fleet being larger. We spent a robust amount of CapEx in the first quarter and increased the average size of our fleet by 16%. But it also reflects nice performance on time utilization. Time was 52.3% and that was up 120 basis points over the comparable period last year and that represents yet another…

Operator

Operator

Certainly. (Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Jerry Revich from Goldman Sachs. Your question please.

Michael Kneeland

Management

Hi, Jerry. Jerry Revich – Goldman Sachs: Hi good morning.

Michael Kneeland

Management

Good morning. Jerry Revich – Goldman Sachs: Matt, can you talk about your updated cost cutting targets? I believe in slide 15 it looks like the branch consolidation number has moved significantly higher, I wonder if you could just step us through the change in branch plan and also touch on relatively lower share on the corporate side as well?

Matt Flannery

Management

Well, as you could imagine, we had our original model back in November/December time frame that we built out. I think at that time Bill had stated that we are going to have about two-thirds of our synergies were going to be realized in the first 12 months. As we have got into the process and started looking under the hood there is some puts and takes in some areas and you recognize one of them in the branch consolidation opportunity. We also think we can get some of that done sooner than the original model. So we have actually updated– the probably most significant update is we have updated our first 12-month, say to $147 million realized in the first 12 months and that was from about $132 to $133 million previous. Jerry Revich – Goldman Sachs: Matt, in terms of the timing you touched on to some extent is it fair to assume that the branch consolidation will be some of the faster moving operations, so is that the biggest driver of the increase to $147 million from $132 million or are there other factors that we should be thinking about?

Matt Flannery

Management

I would say real estate overall we have been able to find ways to accelerate. There are no other major puts and takes but will continue to refine this and as Bill has stated there are some things we haven’t been able to look at yet due to regulatory reasons and when we get into those after the close that we will might be able to incorporate some more detail into our mid-May update. Jerry Revich – Goldman Sachs: Okay. And Michael and Bill, can you touch on the CapEx sections that you are seeing out of your competitors? It’s great to see you are putting the new fleet to work at very high utilization rates. For the first quarter here, I am wondering if you can comment on the range of CapEx increases that you are seeing out of your competition as well? I think we have been hearing up to 50% CapEx increases in the first quarter off of a low base for a lot of the smaller companies but we would love to hear your view on the landscape? Thanks.

Michael Kneeland

Management

Yes, Jerry, it’s Mike. What we have been hearing – and from some various executives of some of our vendors is that they have been seeing a big pickup. It really came – the ARA has their first show in the first quarter and that’s where there is a lot of traffic and they are seeing some upward activity. It’s safe to say that I think that’s a positive sign for the industry as a whole and also from United Rentals specifically we are well positioned because we have had our orders well in advance of making sure that we don’t get squeezed by any lead times.

William Plummer

Management

Yes, I think that a key point is that folks who are placing orders right now are going to face a much more challenging environment in terms of lead times. You have to understand what that means, when they will get the equipment and where it will put them relative to the seasoned. That’s one of the things we feel good about is that we place pre-orders very extensively for the early part of this year. You see it in the CapEx that we realize in Q1. I’ll mention something that I forgot to mention actually in my opening comments that as we look at our CapEx plan for the first half, previously we have said we would be spending about $600 million out of the roughly $1 billion of gross capital spend that we are going to spend this year. Our view now is that we will spend a little north of $700 million of that $1 billion in the first half and that reflects not only the pre-orders that we placed but also the relative strength of the vendor’s performance. So we feel we are positioned well and yes, we are seeing some of the others place orders and the question is when do they get it and what does that mean in the marketplace. Jerry Revich – Goldman Sachs: Thank you very much.

Michael Kneeland

Management

You are welcome.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ted Grace from Susquehanna. Your question please.

Michael Kneeland

Management

Hi, Ted. Ted Grace – Susquehanna: Hi guys, congratulations on the quarter.

Michael Kneeland

Management

Thank you.

Matt Flannery

Management

Thanks, Ted. Ted Grace – Susquehanna: I was hoping to touch on the rental gross margins and the incrementals, in particular, 84% on our math is very impressive relative to our expectations kind of history in the guidance you have given. Just wondering if you could give us as sense for what went on in the quarter that may have helped you hit those numbers and if we could possibly do the cost of rent bridge to understand the puts and takes in the quarter that would be great?

William Plummer

Management

Sure, Ted. So, clearly the impact of rental rate is something you always have to be mind full of in this business and we had a good rental rate performance on a year-over-year basis, up 6.3%, so that gives you a nice backdrop in terms of the contribution of revenue falling to profitability but in addition to that there were a couple of, I guess, I would say one-off items that you should be aware of in order to kind of make sense of it. One is, we had a several million dollars benefit from a recapture of bonus accrual from 2011. We accrued for bonus during calendar 2011 based on an assumption about what we would pay out. When we actually made our final decisions about payout in the first quarter, we ended up paying out less than we accrued. And so, we recognize that benefit as a bonus recapture in the first quarter, in cost of rent that accounted for, as I said a few millions bucks, call it $3 million to $4 million. So that helped, we have had couple of other sort of minor puts and takes. There was a one-time personal property tax benefit that we received that was close onto a million bucks that fell in to the cost of rent bucket as well. So that is another one timer that helped with the follow through in the Q1. The rest of the year-over-year variance in cost of rent, the great majority of it is driven by variable cost associated with higher volume. As I said, volume was up over 18% in the quarter and between repair and maintenance, and delivery expense, and fuel costs, and salaries and benefits associated with the incremental headcount, that really drove the great majority of the year-over-year increase, and as I said, offset by those two benefits, those one-time benefits that I pointed out. So I think that’s probably the way to think about it. A lot of volume related cost going up, as you would expect and as you want and then a couple of one-timers helping you out to give you that outstanding flow through. Is that helpful? We lost Ted. Ted Grace – Susquehanna: Say it again.

William Plummer

Management

I just wanted to make sure that that’s useful for you, anything else? Ted Grace – Susquehanna: That is exactly what I was (inaudible).

William Plummer

Management

Great. Ted Grace – Susquehanna: And then on the SG&A side just similar, strong kind of leverage performances, I was just wondering, if you could talk about the quarter and how we might think about the rest of the year? And, I will get back in queue.

William Plummer

Management

Sure, so for the year-over-year in SG&A, the big drivers there, obviously wages and bonus accrual would be sort of several million dollars of that, let us say it was up $7 million, so let us say $3 million of it or so was wage and – excuse me. Total wage and bonus would have been closer to up 7 by itself, but I would point out there was a one-time headwind from that bonus recapture effect in SG&A. It was a tail wind of a few million dollars in cost of rent, there was little bit of a headwind of about a million bucks, if I remember correctly, about a million bucks in SG&A, but that combined with other wage and bonus accrual adjustments would have taken SG&A up about 7, volume related to commissions and other selling related costs would be up another 3, so now you are up 10 and then we had a very strong bad debt performance in the quarter that actually took that down to the roughly $7 million increase overall. There are a couple of other nits and nats that are kind of offset each other, but those were the big movers. So, wage and bonus and I will call it up 7, volume call it up 3, and then bad debt call it down 4 to get you to -- down 3 to 4 to get you to roughly the net up 7 that we reported. Ted Grace – Susquehanna: Okay that is helpful. And on a go forward basis I know it is going to change in a couple of weeks of the combined company but any kind of guidance, Mike would be willing to share with us?

Matt Flannery

Management

Go forward for these two cost lines. Ted Grace – Susquehanna: Yeah, well SG&A and then the two cost lines?

Matt Flannery

Management

I think, the couple of things to keep in mind is just the bonus accrual will flex with how performance plays out over the course of the year. So, we started out very strong, we are accruing to a little bit higher level of bonus than we expected in our original plan for the year and you have to watch that to see how it plays over the course of the remainder of the year. In cost to rent, you have got a trend of lowering the fleet age so there will be a benefit as we go through the year there from lower repair and maintenance expense, as a share of overall cost of rentals. So you have to keep that mind, there will be a little bit of a tail wind if we can keep the age trending down the way that we planned. Those are the things that come to mind right off. We have raises, marine increase is scheduled to take effect, that took effect at the beginning of April, so that will be on an absolute dollars basis, there will be increase of, call it 2.5% to 3% that flows through our both cost to rent and SG&A because of raises. So you have to make sure that you keep that in mind. Those are the things that come to mind Ted. Ted Grace – Susquehanna: Okay, that is super helpful guys, congratulations and best of luck of this quarter.

Matt Flannery

Management

Thank you

William Plummer

Management

Thanks Ted.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from line of Manish Somaiya from Citi, your question please.

Manish Somaiya -- Citi

Analyst

Good morning everyone and my hearty congratulations as well.

Matt Flannery

Management

Thank you

William Plummer

Management

Thank you

Manish Somaiya -- Citi

Analyst

Couple of question, I guess since we have Mat on the phone, I guess particularly on the integration Mat, obviously, the slides are terrific as far as kind of laying out your thought process. But, as we kind of think about on the ground execution and with 2Q and 3Q being seasonally strong for the industry, how should we think about how much is going to get done over the next two quarters? Is it something that is going to have to wait till fourth quarter? And then, related to that how quickly do we expect to have the MIS systems aligned?

Matt Flannery

Management

Great questions Manish, I would say as far as the synergy timing, what we do expect to get in this calendar year will be more towards the back half of the year. We really need to use the second quarter to validate some of the assumptions we have made to take look and make sure that -- we want to be prudent. As I had stated in my opening comments, the most important thing is to make this a seamless transition for the customer. With that being said, whether it falls in the third or fourth quarter is not going to be managed output for us. As opposed to getting them done as quickly as we can, so that we can move with our operational best practices. So that will be my answer on the timing issue of the synergies.

William Plummer

Management

The other question you have was on the IT, IT we are looking at a go live date Manish, somewhere between 60 and 90 days in close.

Matt Flannery

Management

Yes.

Manish Somaiya -- Citi

Analyst

Okay and then just two other quick questions, one is on branding, any thoughts on keeping two brands, one brand and then just on Tier 4, I know we have talked about Tier 4 equipment in the past, but now that we have more of that equipment in the field, may be if you can talk about what kind of pricing you are getting on Tier 4 versus non Tier 4? Are you getting more because certainly I mean you are paying more on Tier 4, so may be if you can just kind outline something’s there for us?

Michael Kneeland

Management

Manish, I will handle the branding question and I will pass of the other part of your question on prices of the equipment to both Matt and Bill. But, branding is a great question, I want to make sure everyone understand that the name will remain United Rentals, but to me a brand is much more than just a name. It is about understanding and implementing a vision and getting collective of thoughts from our employees our customers and our investors. And once we collect an information, we will come forward at the appropriate time to voice and communicate what our vision and our statement will be going forward, but right day one it is going to be United Rentals and RSC, it will be plus United RSC and I will tell you that we have got, -- I assume this is what Mat talked about on teams from both sides. We have a gentlemen from RSC who is leading this up, going deep inside the organization and collecting some very very good information about the people’s collective thoughts around both companies and I think that is the important. This is an opportunity for us, because it is a new phase of not only our company but I think of the industry to step back and take a look at our brand. On the question of pricing --

Matt Flannery

Management

Manish, was your question about whether we realized different pricing, different rental rates for Tier 4 versus Tier 3 units.

Manish Somaiya -- Citi

Analyst

Yes, exactly that.

Matt Flannery

Management

No, the short answer. Although, I will expand a little bit, we are looking at segregating the assets for two reasons, not just for pricing reasons, but if we have a -- as the manufacturers are manufacturing a limited amount of Tier 4 and as you can imagine they face into the fleet will initially we a small percentage, we want to segregate them out to make sure that customers who have Tier 4 requirements on the project or in the states that they are in, that those assets are separated out, so they don’t -- the worst think we could do is send a Tier 4 engine to a project or customer that doesn’t need it. So that does give us the opportunity to separate them out from the rest of the category which then you would obviously look at how the pricing will play out.

Manish Somaiya -- Citi

Analyst

Got you, thank you so much, I appreciate it.

Michael Kneeland

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Scott Schneeberger from Oppenheimer, your question please.

William Plummer

Management

Hey Scott Scott Schneeberger – Oppenheimer: Thanks Mike, good morning. I guess my first question would be, how do you guys feel with regard to visibility into the upcoming peak season and the full year from what you are seeing and hearing from the field on, just on projects and what is the visibility (inaudible)?

William Plummer

Management

I will talk about, what we, the visibility around the customers and I will ask Matt to talk more about projects and what he is seeing more of from a geography stand point. As you know, we have quality business reviews with all of our business segments and we go into depth about talking about what we are understanding and hearing from the customers. Similar to what we experienced in the fourth quarter of last year, our first quarter results from all indications from our customers remains true 80% came back and said that they see 2012 to be equal to or better than 2011. So, we see that as being comforting, I will also tell you anecdotally, and all the quite comments I have had with customers. They are seeing the level of biding activity go up again and that is another healthy indication of the environment. As far as geography and projects Mat will you –

Matt Flannery

Management

Scott as far geographically our growth has been very broad based in North America, we had all but four states showing year-over-year growth and the large majority of those have been double digit, as far as those states showing growth. And the four states that haven’t shown growth are in the single digits and then in Canada, all but two provinces has shown growth so, the growth is wide spread, which is good news for us, they are coming from the sectors that you would imagine, the energy sector through power plants and oil and gas drilling, through manufacturing there is some large projects that are going on there like to Walker project and the BigThree[ph] are starting to invest back into their plants and even the commercial sector is up, right here in lower Manhattan, we have got five major projects going on with the four Freedom Towers and the 9/11 Memorial as well as a path transportation upgrade, so the opportunities are pretty broad based. Scott Schneeberger – Oppenheimer: Great, thanks, if I could sneak through into my last question, could you comment on the weather impact in first quarter, if there is, if it influences the second quarter at all? And then Bill, separately how should we model used equipment sales margins going forward? Thanks, that is it from me, I appreciate it.

Michael Kneeland

Management

Excuse me, can you rephrase your first question, did you talk about the weather? Scott Schneeberger – Oppenheimer: Yeah, just weather, general question on how you think it influenced the quarter and will that have any influence on second quarter results.

Michael Kneeland

Management

Weather is always one that and in particularly in the fourth quarter and first quarter is really any mans guess, as we go through it. As you know that everyone has noted that there was a very warm and dry winter across North America and has it benefited us? Absolutely. How can I quantify it? Very difficult. Do I think it is going to impact the project and our type of customer that we go after in the second quarter? No, most of those are well start up projects, they have to bring their steel, the steel is ordered well in advance, they just can’t fast forward that that quickly. With regard to some of the smaller projects, yeah there are probably some projects that got longer term that probably came on board sooner, I don’t see them ramping or taking away from the second quarter, given the demand that we are seeing and also we are bring in more CapEx because of the demand that our customers are expressing to us, so that is how we see it.

William Plummer

Management

And Scott on your second question about modeling used margins, I guess what we have said is that, if you go back over a long period, 10 years or so and exclude ’09 and ’10 which are obviously major upheaval years, our used margins have been in that high twenties kind of percent area over each of those years. Given the strong start that we had to this year, I think it is very fair to say that that will be a little bit higher than we normally have been we were last year, I think we realized for the full year used margins of 31 and change, 31.7% and I would have to guess that we would do that at least again this year as just a general statement to how to model it. So, I would say higher than our normal historic average, I will let you use your imagination for how much higher. Scott Schneeberger – Oppenheimer: Right, thanks guys great job.

William Plummer

Management

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of from David Raso from ISI Group, your question please.

William Plummer

Management

Hi David

Operator

Operator

David, you might have your phone on mute. David Raso – ISI Group: Sorry, I am here, thank you. Two quick questions, first the progress you see quarterly on the rental rates in the fleet utilization to maintain those full year targets. I appreciate seasonally the rental revenue in the first quarter doesn’t completely carry its -- say 25% of the year waiting, but specially on the fleet utilization, if we were positive 120 bps year-over-year in the first quarter and we are looking for 50 for the full year, can you walk us in that quarterly progression? Are you expecting the back half of the year, fleet utilization to be largely flat at that stage or how do you think that would do that progression?

William Plummer

Management

Yeah David, it’s very clearly that as we get into the back half of the year, we are going to be comping really huge utilization quarter. So, we brought the year-over-year improvement down aggressively in the back half to reflect that very fact. So, we think half a percent, we can make without giving a specific year-over-year number by quarter. Yeah, it comes down pretty close to nothing as you get further out. And keep in mind obviously, the fleet is getting much larger and we are comping very strong utilizations last year, so in our view that is going to require us to put a huge amount on rent as we get that larger fleet in. And our belief is that the markets there, the demands there to be able to do that, but that’s underlying the time utilization model. On rental rates and the progression there, the one way to think about it is, given what we did in the first quarter, we would need something like half a percent per month sequentially out through October and then basically nothing sequentially thereafter, in order to deliver the 5% full year. So, that’s very clearly within the realm of reasonable and as always we are going to look for more if it is there. Does that help? David Raso – ISI Group: Well, could you give us some color on how the rates were moving sequentially, I know there is some seasonality with the first quarter, but how much were rates up March versus February? How are we looking at April so far versus March? Just to see how that progression is playing out so far?

William Plummer

Management

Sure, so on a sequential basis, I would give you the sequentials and I would remind everybody that this is on ARA basis. The sequentials for January, sequential is down 6/10th and then it went positive 3/10th and then flat in March. And I guess, I would offer that April is -- the first half of April has been strong. Just to give you a comparison, if you look at last year, the sequentials in January were down half a percent and February up 2/10th and March down 2/10th, so the sequential progression this year is actually better than it was last year, when you think about the monthly sequentials, so that again gives us a lot of confidence that we are off on a nice run and that the 5% should be attained. David Raso – ISI Group: Then when it comes to CapEx, lets say your comment, first half of the year you’ll be over 700 million of the billion growth lets call it 07/10 for argument sake. It implies to back after the year CapEx is down 20% year-over-year. How shall I think about that in the sense of by the time we get to June how are you viewing the age year old t? Are you comfortable with that? Or simply look that is the map, it is right map, but we will obviously evaluate the CapEx when we get there. How shall I think about that back up CapEx implication.

William Plummer

Management

You said it beautifully. I don’t question the map, but we’ve done and you’ve seen us do it the last several years right. What we do is, we assess where the market is and where it is heading and how it feels and whether we can put more CapEx on rent at good rates and expect good returns over the longer haul and if and when we make that call we are not short about raising our CapEx guidance. I think we’ve done it all three years that I have been here and so our plan is bring the 700 in the market certainly feels like it will soak that up right here now and then lets take a look around as we get toward the end of the second quarter and make a separate call about whether we should be raising the back CapEx expectation or leave it where it is. David Raso – ISI Group: And related to that question from my very last question, the CapEx’s decision to bring the equipment in a little earlier, that may be the original plan in the first quarter. What drove that? I mean obviously you can answer the business was strong (inaudible), but safe from the supplier side or some of the dynamics that drove that decision and take the equipment a little earlier and if you could enlighten us like when was that decision made, I am not sure how quick your suppliers can respond to a change in that decision?

William Plummer

Management

So, great question. We started placing pre-orders for the first two quarters in late last year and I think the first pre-orders that we placed we probably did in like September and that was the signal to our vendors that we were going to have demand, robust demand in the first half of the year. So, they started to position themselves to be able to deliver against those pre-orders as sort of a baseline of capacity. They did a nice job of ramping up their production capacity and they were able to supply fleet into us, quite honestly even faster than we had in our plan with the pre-orders. So, we asked ourselves can the market absorb more fleet faster than what we had thought and we concluded, yes it can and so we said yes if you can ship it we’ll take it and that played out very nicely and resulted in the numbers that you saw for Q1 and what you’ll see for the first half and it was a combination of the market being able to absorb additional fleet and the vendors being able to supply it and in us obviously being able to buy it. So, it all worked together to accelerate the CapEx. David Raso – ISI Group: Alright, great. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

William Plummer

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Henry Kirn from UBS. Your question please. Henry Kirn – UBS: Hey good morning guys.

William Plummer

Management

Good morning Henry. Henry Kirn – UBS: You’ve sold a lot of equipment over the last few quarter into the used market, just wanted you if you could talk about who is buying, it is generally staying in the equipments original home market or have you seen international buyers come in and clear it out of your serve market.

William Plummer

Management

Michael, you want to say something.

Michael Kneeland

Management

I am just going to say Henry, I actually attended one of the auctions, actually both of the auction. Actually, both of the auctions that the two large auction houses I had in February and the general feel I had and the comments I received back was at the offshoring of equipment actually went up significantly over the prior year. That’s to me is a tell-tale sign. That demand is robust in other parts of the globe and the demand for our equipment which realistically, if you are looking for used equipment there is no better market than the US and North America, because it’s still the largest producers of used inventory.

Matt Flannery

Management

The who is buying question, as we said many times before it really is the who is who of people who use equipment, so wide range of folks. But I do think Michael’s point is a very important one. Strong offshore demand I think is really supplementing demand that we are seeing from a wide range of customers here in North America. Henry Kirn – UBS: That’s helpful. One follow up, could you talk a little bit about how far along do you think we are on the secular shift? And maybe, how does the new prospect look today compared with a year ago, cycle is picking up, have you seen an increase in enquires from potential customers who weren’t renting before?

Michael Kneeland

Management

Well, Henry, we have had this discussion and we have been talking with Global Insight with Scott Hazelton and as you know they have been commissioned by the American Rental Association to do some research. All indications that they have put forward based on a lot of data that realistically is very in depth, they are suggesting that the CAGR growth for our industry over five years is going to be somewhere in the vicinity of 12.5%. That’s a pretty healthy number by any stretch of the imagination. When you asked about secular shift and what happens, I think that going into this year they are continuing to see that secular shift movement going in a positive direction. When the capital markets are wide open, when you asked them what has occurred historically the secular penetration doesn’t decline, it levels itself off until the next downturn and then it actually goes back up again, continues its march upward. I don’t think that that pattern is going to change and what we are seeing right here and now. Henry Kirn – UBS: Thanks a lot. Congratulations.

Michael Kneeland

Management

Thank you.

Matt Flannery

Management

Thanks, Henry.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Due to time constraints this does conclude the question-and-answer session of today’s program. I would like to hand the program back to Michael Kneeland for any further remarks.

Michael Kneeland

Management

Okay. Well, thank you very much operator. I’ll remind everyone that to download our new IR presentation from our website we have made some substantial updates since our last quarter and obviously if there is any additional questions please reach out to Fred Bratman so that we can answer your questions specifically. I want to thank you for joining us today. This is a big year. Next time that we issue earnings we plan on being the new United Rentals, but we will be in touch before then and as always we welcome your calls here in Greenwich. Thank you very much and have a great day.

Operator

Operator

Thank you ladies and gentlemen for your participation in today’s conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Good day.