Earnings Call Transcript - SUNB Q4 FY2026

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Sunbelt Rentals Fiscal Fourth Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in your listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation, and you may be placed into question queue at any time by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. We ask you to please ask one question, one follow-up, then return to the queue. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, and if anyone should require operator assistance, please press star 0. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Kevin Powers, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Kevin, please go ahead.

Kevin Powers, Head of Investor Relations

Right. Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Today, we're reviewing our fourth quarter and year results ended April 30, 2026, with comments on operations and our financials, including our view of the industry and our strategic outlook. The prepared remarks will be followed by an open Q&A. Let me remind you that today's call will include forward-looking statements. These statements are based on the environment, as we see it today, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the factors identified in the press release, as well as other filings with the SEC. Today, we're reporting financial results on a U.S. GAAP basis. In addition, we'll be discussing our non-GAAP information that we believe is useful in evaluating the company's operating performance. Reconciliations to these non-GAAP measures to the closest GAAP equivalent can be found in the earnings release and the conference call materials. This morning, I'm joined by Brendan Organ, our Chief Executive Officer, and Alex Pease, our Chief Financial Officer. I'll now turn the call over to Brendan.

Speaker 11

Thanks, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. As always, we'll kick off the call with a safety update before we move on to the strategic and operational highlights for the year. So, beginning on slide five. Safety remains foundational to our success and is central to our culture at Sunbelt Rentals. For me, one of the more powerful reminders of this is our annual safety week, which we hosted last month. As I visited branches across the business and saw firsthand the deep commitment our teams have to not only protecting one another, but our customers, it's clear to see how our engagement continues to translate into measurable results, world-class safety program, and the ownership of Engage for Life by teams throughout the business. These results reflect sustained investment in training, technology-enabled safety monitoring, and a culture of standards and accountability across all of our locations. World-class safety performance not only protects our people, but also drives operational efficiencies and strengthens customer confidence in our brand. So, to our Sunbelt team members listening in, thank you for your efforts to date and your ongoing commitment to Engage for Life. Turning now to slide six to highlight key messages for fiscal year 26. The business delivered record Q4 and full-year revenues of $2.8 billion and $11.2 billion, growing 8.9% and 3.4% respectively over last year, which came in above the top end of our March guidance. This revenue produced $4.7 billion adjusted EBITDA, drove a record-free cash flow of $2.1 billion, contributing to record returns to shareholders of $1.9 billion through share repurchases and dividends. Momentum accelerated through the end of the year with 8% fourth quarter rental revenue growth led by specialty growth of 15% and general tool growth of four. This performance demonstrates the continued strength, resilience, and diversity of our business and end markets. In addition, Rental rates remain resilient, reflecting structural progression and disciplined investments. We continue to expand our footprint through 51 greenfield openings and 24 locations via Bolt-On. Our top-line momentum built throughout the year with mega-project strengths, both in starts and pipeline, demand for energy solutions, significant live events, and large strategic account activity. In addition, we continue to experience what we call equilibrium between completions and starts in our local non-residential construction markets, meaning, in essence, that starts and completions are in balance, and importantly, our leading indicators remain positive, perhaps illustrated best by our significant fourth-quarter momentum gains. Lastly, we're pleased to have announced a strategic transaction, expanding our specialty offering that we believe will aid in the delivery of strong returns to shareholders. Let's turn to slide seven for some added color on this transaction. So I'll spend just a few minutes on the acquisition we announced this morning, which aligns with our capital allocation priorities, advances our Sunbelt Ford Auto strategy, and further positions Sunbelt for long-term growth. We're excited to announce the acquisition of Reliant Asset Management, which creates our 13th specialty business line, Sunbelt Rentals Modular Solutions. Reliant, which trades under the Aries brand, serves as a foundational entry point into the attractive modular solutions market. This will be a core part of the Sunbelt formula for driving complementary growth in specialty and general tool while growing our addressable markets. Modular is a highly complementary vertical to our other site services related offerings such as ground protection, temporary structures, temporary walls, and temporary fencing, which entirely aligns with our Sunbelt 4.0 strategy. Ares brings a national reach, a strong management team, and a meaningful backlog with a significant cross-selling opportunity through Sunbelt's strategic sales coverage and existing customer relationships. Today, Aries is in just 14 of Sunbelt's top 50 markets, which clearly gives us substantial runway to grow density over time through both greenfields and additional bolt-on M&A. Portable storage is also under-penetrated in the existing fleet, which is another area for further investment, customer, and revenue gains. We look forward to capitalizing on the natural synergies modular solutions brings as we continue to integrate its offering into the power of Sunbelt. Let's now take a look at some of the construction industry trends and forecasts on slide eight. This is our usual presentation of Dodge Starts, Dodge Momentum Index, the Architectural Billing Index, and the Fed Funds Rate. The U.S. Dodge Momentum Index continues to signal strength in construction demand, providing a positive backdrop for our business. This leading indicator tracks commercial projects with projected starts values of less than $500 million as they first enter the planning stage and serves as a predictor therefore of construction starts to come over the next 12 to 18 months. This best represents an indicator for what we commonly refer to as local non-residential construction. The momentum figures and starts on this slide feed into the put-in-place figures on slide nine. Providing a broader view of the U.S. construction markets and North American rental market outlook, according to Dodge, total U.S. construction put-in-place excluding residential is expected to reach approximately $1.3 trillion in 2027, with continued growth through the end of the decade. Our construction markets are highly diversified across local non-residential, large, and a broad sector range of megaprojects and infrastructure. As you saw in our fiscal 2026 results, and you will see in our fiscal 27 guide, our business growth continues to outpace the North American construction market. This is driven by our scale and market diversity, breadth of solutions, and the continued structural progression of our business and industry. Now turning to our full-year results in more detail on slide 10. Total revenue and rental revenue both grew 3.4% to a record $11.2 billion and $10.3 billion, respectively, with general tool and specialty sequentially strengthening throughout the year. Adjusted EBITDA declined 2% year-over-year with margins compressing 200 basis points to 41.9%. Margins were impacted by three factors. First, inconsistent with what we experienced and detailed throughout the year, our growth in the year was largely volume-led, carrying costs such as asset fleet repositioning to drive utilization and unlock pockets of market opportunities and growth. Second, particularly relating to the fourth quarter, margins reflected a greater contribution from specialty, which carries, as you know, a lower EBITDA margin than general tool, but delivers extremely attractive returns on investment and runway for growth. Margin mix was also impacted by a higher contribution from ancillary revenues in areas such as E&D, fuel, and re-rent. When these profitable revenues outpace pure rent revenues, they'll impact margins. Third, and also specific to Q4, we lapsed the previously communicated reversal of a $28 million receivables provision recognized in the fourth quarter last year related to a customer Chapter 11 filing in the fourth quarter of 2024. Excluding the reversal benefit recognized in the prior year, adjusted EBITDA margin in the quarter declined 290 basis points. We invested $2.2 billion in CapEx as we maintained discipline and capital deployment, focusing on fleet replacement, and targeted growth areas. Finally, we generated record free cash flow of $2.1 billion, which was up 23% year-over-year, demonstrating our ability to fund growth while returning significant capital to shareholders, which in fiscal year 2026, we returned nearly $1.9 billion through share buybacks and dividends, demonstrating the resilience of our business, and continued ability to invest in growth. Slide 11 illustrates our North America fleet on rent trends, where we are experiencing continued strength and momentum. Large strategic customers and mega project activity is fueling growth, and we continue to see positive leading indicators, and importantly, the industry supply and demand dynamics are healthy, which, when combined with structural progression, continue to support a resilient rate environment. Our diversified business model and deep customer relationships are driving increased cross-selling between North America general tool and specialty segments. We also continue to build momentum through the network of 537 locations that have been added during 3.0 and thus far in Sunbelt 4.0, which are maturing and contributing to our growth. As you see here, our fleet on rent growth momentum has continued in May and June. Moving to slide 12, which shows equipment rental revenue growth on its billings per day basis across our segments. North America General Tool delivered consistent, low single-digit growth throughout the year, accelerating to 4% in Q4. This was driven by positive volume momentum and resilient rates in end markets, which continued to be mixed. Local non-residential construction markets, which I've mentioned, remain in this equilibrium state where we believe starts are generally in balance with completions. Therefore, growth is being driven by the ongoing strength of megaproject landscape and the broader construction markets. North America's specialty delivered a strong 14% growth in Q4 and 6% for the full year. Growth was driven by broad-based project demand across markets from mega projects to live events to demand for energy solutions. This performance was broad across multiple specialty lines, including power and HVC, load banks, scaffolding, temporary fencing, structures, trench safety, and ground protection. So, when comparing Q4 rental revenue growth to Q1 by segment, General Tool exited the year to pace four times its entry and specialty nearly three times. This momentum in Q4 gives us confidence in the trajectory for fiscal year 2027. And with that, I'll hand the call over to Alex to review the financials in more detail. Alex.

Alexander Pease, CFO

Thank you, Brandon, and good morning to everyone. Our fourth quarter results for the company are set out on slide 14. Total revenue grew 8.9%, driven by higher sales of used and new rental equipment, alongside 8% rental revenue growth. We ended the year with strong momentum, driven by volume growth and higher utilization across most geographies with stable rates. As Brendan's already explained, our adjusted EBITDA margin cost factors impacting our fourth quarter results were similar to our nine-month results. with Q4 also reflecting the lapping of an approximately $28 million receivables provision reversal recognized in Q4 of fiscal 25 and a higher mix of ancillary revenues. CapEx increased 76% in the quarter, reflecting funding for ongoing specialty growth, recent megaproject wins, and replacement timing between Q4 of fiscal 2026 and Q1 of fiscal 2027. Finally, free cash flow was $627 million, reflecting the ramp-up in CapEx in the quarter. This table on slide 15 provides a comprehensive view of our Q4 and full-year financial results. Full-year total revenue reached a record $11.2 billion, up 3.4%, with equipment rental revenue of $10.3 billion, also growing 3.4%. Adjusted EBITDA was $4.7 billion, dollars with the full year margin at 41.9 percent. Absent the UK business, North America margins were 43.4 percent inclusive of all company overheads. Depreciation for the year was unchanged at $2.2 billion, reflecting disciplined fleet management alongside improved time utilization. After an interest expense of $387 million, full year adjusted pre-tax profit was $2.1 billion. Adjusted EPS was $3.72 for the year, while trailing 12-month return on investment was 14%. In the fourth quarter, below adjusted EBITDA, depreciation declined 2.8%, significantly less than revenue growth, while interest expense was broadly in line with the prior year. Adjusted EPS was $0.74 down year-over-year, primarily reflecting the lapping of the receivables position reversal discussed earlier, as well as a higher effective tax rate. The increase in the tax rate was largely due to the non-recurrence of a favorable state tax adjustment recorded in the prior year period. The combination of these two line items added 7 cents to the fourth quarter of 2025 that did not repeat in 2026. Turning to North America General Tool on slide 16, we delivered full-year total revenue of $6.5 billion, up 1.7 percent, with rental revenue growth of 2.1 percent. In Q4, rental revenue growth accelerated to 4.4 percent, led by volume improvement and stable rates. Strengthened megaprojects helped mitigate moderated conditions in the local non-residential construction market. In Q4, the adjusted EBITDA margin performance was the result of volume-led growth, driving costs higher, most notably costs to reposition the fleet to growth markets. Additionally, the higher mix of ancillary revenues coinciding with the sharp rise in fuel prices had a negative mix impact on segment margin. We do expect these margin dynamics to improve in fiscal 2027. Lastly, dollar utilization was 47% for the full year. North American specialty continues to be our strongest growth engine with full-year total revenue of $3.7 billion, up 6.5%, and rental revenue growth of 5.8%. Q4 was particularly strong, with rental revenue accelerating to 15.1% growth, driven by continued demand in project-related activity and expanded scope of our value-added services. Our power and HVAC business increased by nearly 30%, led by load banks. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 45% declined compared to last year, mainly due to the one-time lapping of the receivable provision reversal that was booked within our specialty segment. When you adjust for the prior year benefit, specialty adjusted EBITDA margins increased 20 basis points and adjusted operating profit margins increased 160 basis points. Dollar utilization improved 75% from 73% in the prior year, reflecting our ability to deploy specialty assets more productively as the fleet matures and cross-sell opportunities expand. Turning to the UK segment on slide 18, full-year total revenue was $932 million, up 2.8% with rental revenue growth of 3.1%. The UK team has been focused on delivering operational efficiency and improving long-term returns on capital. Restructuring actions were taken during the year to unlock value, drive stronger free cash flow, and better serve our customers. Moving on to CapEx and free cash flow on slide 19. This slide shows our capital expenditure discipline and strong free cash flow generation. Full-year total CapEx declined 18.5% year-over-year to $2.2 billion, reflecting our focus on fleet replacement and supporting targeted pockets of growth, primarily in specialty. We dynamically allocate capital based on market conditions, ensuring we maintain fleet quality while capturing the best return opportunities. To that end, and consistent with our capital allocation priorities to first focus on growth, We invested to open 51 new greenfields, a mix of 31 specialty locations and 20 general tool locations. In addition to that, we spent $238 million on 13 bolt-on acquisitions, adding 24 new Sunbelt locations. Lastly, free cash flow grew 22.7% to $2.1 billion, a new record for the company. This demonstrates that our cash-from-operations are fully capable of funding volume growth while returning meaningful capital to shareholders. Next, looking at our balance sheet on slide 20, net debt at period end was $7.6 billion, consisting of $1.4 billion of first-lane senior-secured bank debt and $6.2 billion in senior notes. Net debt to EBITDA leverage stood at 1.6 times, well within our stated target range of one to two times. This conservative leverage positioning provides significant flexibility to fund both organic growth investments and strategic M&A while maintaining our commitment to returning capital to shareholders through dividends and buybacks. Following the ARIS acquisition, we continue to remain comfortably within our targeted range. During the year, we've returned approximately $1.9 billion to shareholders through share buybacks of $1.4 billion and dividends paid for $464 million. For the final dividend of the year, our $0.75 per share will be paid on July 24th, resulting in a full-year dividend of $1.12.5 per share, which represents 4% growth year over year. Looking forward, given our new U.S. listing construct, we intend to transition to a quarterly The timing and amount of our Q1 dividend will be announced in conjunction with our Q1 results. Now turning to slide 21, we're introducing our guidance for fiscal year, full year 2027, which reflects the continuation of strong demand alongside a disciplined focus on converting growth into improved returns over time. For fiscal 2027, we expect total revenue growth of between 4.5% to 7.5% and rental revenue growth between 5% and 8%, led by specialty and supported by steady growth in general tool. We expect megaprojects to remain an important driver and assume local non-residential construction markets remain stable as our internal indicators continue to trend positively. In terms of profitability, we expect adjusted EBITDA between $4.85 to $5.05 billion, representing solid year-over-year growth with margins broadly flat, reflecting what we have so thoroughly covered in today's call related to revenue mix, as well as the first year of ARIS in our consolidated results. This flattish margin profile in 2027 reflects the continuation of stronger relative specialty growth and higher ancillary revenues. In terms of margin expectations as the year proceeds, we expect to see an improvement in the back half of the year as our operational excellence drivers gain more traction. Of course, if we are also able to gain greater traction and velocity through our dynamic customer pricing initiatives, this could provide some upside to the year as well. Finally, we expect net rental equipment CapEx of between $2.05 and $2.45 billion and gross rental CapEx of between $2.45 and $2.85 billion. The increase reflects higher growth investments across both general tool and specialty, as well as the incremental capital required to grow Eris. In addition, we are planning to open 55 greenfield locations, with 15 coming from general tool and 40 coming from specialty. Looking ahead, our focus remains on converting continued volume growth into margin stabilization and improvement over time. And with that, I'll turn the call back over to Brendan to close us out.

Speaker 11

Thanks, Alex. And before we open it up for questions, I'll take just a moment to look ahead at fiscal 27 and share why we're confident in the momentum we're carrying into the new year. The market backdrop remains constructive, and our strategic positioning has never been stronger. On slide 23, and as always, our guidance for this year reflects our clear and disciplined capital allocation priorities. Our first priorities are organic investments. Next, we focus on discipline to bolt on M&A. And finally, we return capital to shareholders through a progressive dividend and share buybacks while staying within our long-term leverage range of one to two times. Turning to slide 24, we will continue to execute against our well-known Sunbelt 4.0 strategic growth plan as we advance our five actionable components, of which customer, growth, performance, sustainability, and investment. Our leadership team gave an in-depth update about our progress across each of these actual components during our March Investor Day, and we look forward to continuing the momentum in fiscal year 27. To close on slide 25, I want to reinforce the core investment thesis for Sunbelt Rentals, which were clearly demonstrated in today's results and our guide for fiscal year 27. We operate in a large, structurally growing rental industry where long-term trends create significant opportunity for well-positioned leaders. Our distinct competitive advantage, scale, network density, specialty breadth, technology-enabled systems, safety platform, and an execution-driven culture compound over time and deliver superior outcomes. We have clear growth paths through share gains, specialty expansion, and clustered market strategy, driving sustained revenue growth and durable margins. Our strong balance sheet and through-the-cycle free cash flow enable flexible capital deployment and our disciplined capital allocation priorities within our stated leverage range provide a foundation for long-term shareholder value creation. And with that, operator, I think we're ready to open the call for questions.

Operator

We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to be placed in the question queue, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to remove yourself from the queue, please press star 2. A confirmation tone will indicate your mind is in the question queue. And as a reminder, we ask you, please ask one question, one follow-up, then return to the queue. Our first question today is coming from Rob Wertheimer from Amelius Research. Is that why?

Speaker 12

Thanks, and good morning, everybody. You talked about the margin drivers on the call, and I heard it, but I wonder if you could just sort of, in a general sense, talk about what it would take to get back to margin growth in the upcoming year.

Neil Tyler, Analyst — Rothschild & Company Redburn

And I know you mentioned a couple factors on narrow pricing and so forth.

Speaker 12

Are you seeing drag from mega projects in margin? I mean, you know, what's the biggest kind of holdup to growth there?

Speaker 11

Yeah, good morning, Rob. I'll start with that. And to begin with, in terms of mega projects, as we've said, across the life cycle of a mega project, margin profile is essentially the same as the business as a whole. There are periods of time when we have more early mega project wins, where we have significant load-ins, et cetera, where there will be a slight or momentary couple of quarters degradation from an overall margin standpoint. I would say that we're in one of those periods now, given the volume of mega project wins that we've experienced, and that will carry on through the first half of the year. I think you heard Alex in his prepared remarks talk about this being a back half-year opportunity from a margin standpoint. The other thing, of course, is we've got a bit of rate and pricing momentum, but as we gain more of that, of course, we will see margin impact there, not just in gen rents, which is probably most pronounced at the moment, but across the business overall. And then the other one I just want to point to, Rob, and maybe it was a bit in your question but not entirely, you know, is just this mixed effect. First things first, just being specialty, right? This is a high margin, particularly operating profit and high ROI business that's got great opportunity for growth and a great quarter that it posted with 15% growth. But if you look at specialty for the quarter as a, for instance, you know, our pure rental revenue, So just what you charge for the rental rate of whatever the assets are, we're up 8% in the quarter, where the ancillary revenues, E&D, fuel, re-rental, we're up 32%, 33%, and therefore you're going to have some compression overall on margin.

Alexander Pease, CFO

Yeah, let me just give you one additional color point on the mega projects. I think it's a really good question, and it actually points to the strength in the business and why we're so optimistic about 2027. If you look quarter one, quarter two, quarter three of this year, the valuation of the projects and the funnel was around $10 billion. If you look in quarter four, that valuation jumped to around $25 billion. So you've more than 2x'd the valuation of projects in the funnel, which points exactly to the effect that Brendan mentioned. As we load in those projects before we're invoicing revenue, you will see some margin compression, but, boy, it sure speaks to a really healthy pipeline.

Speaker 12

That's fantastic. And just for clarity, that's projects in your – that's not like Dodge Day That's kind of projects you're looking at specifically, right? And I'll stop there.

Alexander Pease, CFO

That's projects that we have actually won.

Speaker 11

That's our pipeline. Those are awards. That's not the typical slide you're used to seeing that shows the Dodge backlog.

Speaker 12

Perfect. Thank you.

Speaker 11

Great.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is coming from Annalise Vermeer from Morgan Stanley. You're on his own last.

Annalise Vermeer, Analyst — Morgan Stanley

Hi. Sorry, good morning, rather, Brendan and Alex. So, firstly, on your guidance for rental revenue growth, 5% to 8%. So, just trying to unpack it a bit here. you've done 8% in Q4. The comp is pretty undemanding through your fiscal 27. You've done quite a large acquisition as well more recently. So within that guide, could you talk a little bit about how much is already locked in by that acquisition and other deals that you've done and how much is sort of underlying organic growth? And then as a follow-up to that on rate, you've talked about rates being stable over the year. I'd be curious to hear how that trended in Q4 relative to the first nine months of the year, given some of the cost of inflation and so on, and given all these internal initiatives you've spoken about, it sounds like you're pretty confident on positive rate growth in 2027. Is that right? Thank you.

Alexander Pease, CFO

Yeah, so I'll take a stab at it, and Brendan will add some additional color. As it relates to the guide relative to the exit point on Q4, I think it's really important to mention that we have a lot of one-time activity related to non-construction events, you know, particularly around things like FIFA, the World Cup event. That's around a 70 or so million dollar kind of one-time effect. I also think it's important, as we've said, the local non-residential construction markets, which are so critical to our business, you know, remain in equilibrium, so are certainly stable, but, you know, we're not ready to call an inflection point against that. And so that's really what's underpinning the guidance for the year. But, you know, rest assured, we feel really good about the momentum in the business and, you know, are pretty confident in the guidance that we're putting forward as it relates to rental revenue growth. As it relates to rate, which I think was the second piece of your question. We're now active with our dynamic customer pricing in 15 markets, so we're beginning to scale that. It's still early days, which is why we sort of highlighted there's tailwinds as it relates to rates, but that's not embedded in the guidance, and that would be consistent to how we spoke about it during the Capital Markets Day. But again, rest assured, rates have been stable, And, you know, we're starting to see some green shoots that are positive trends. Last point you mentioned on cost. You know, there are things that we're doing around cost to sort of mitigate some of the margin headwinds. There's always the inflationary effect on salaries and wages. That's around 3%. That's a big line item on the P&L. So, obviously, rate becomes very important to offset that. We're taking some initiatives on improving the reimbursement rates that we get for transportation expense. Obviously, as we see more broad-based growth across the footprint, some of that fleet repositioning cost should begin to mitigate as our utilization rates improve. So there's a lot of things that we're doing, but I think it's really important to emphasize the point that Brendan made in response to the earlier question and in some of the prepared remarks. Mix is such a big driver of what our margin profile looks like. So when you see specialty growth at the extremely, you know, exciting levels that it's at relative to general tool, you're always going to see a slight level of margin compression. But then you're also going to see ROI expansion because that segment comes with higher ROI. So that's just sort of where the mix lands. And, you know, last point on mix would be the high ancillary growth. So in the quarter, you know, ancillaries in specialty grew north of 30% relative to pure rental growing just under 10%. So that's things like re-rent, it's fuel surcharges, it's erection and dismantling revenue. So all of those are very attractive, high ROI revenues, but come at, you know, 10% to 15% margin as opposed to, you know, double-bit strong sort of 50% or so margins in the pure rental side. So hopefully that helps explain some of the dynamics.

Speaker 11

Just to point in, at least, on your question on ARIES in terms of contribution, that's about 1% of that guide, actually just a touch under 1%. And it's also worth mentioning there, you know, year one, that's going to be a drag on margin, even more so than specialty typically would have. Aries actually had quite a large portion of their revenues that stemmed from sales. And you'll see over the quarters and years to come, as we significantly expand that business and it generates more and more contribution for us, you'll see that shift to virtually exclusively rental revenues with just a bit of sales. Did we get everything you were looking for there, Annalise?

Annalise Vermeer, Analyst — Morgan Stanley

Yes, I think we covered all of it. Thank you very much, both.

Operator

Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is coming from Kyle Mengers from City. Your line is now live.

Kyle Mengers, Analyst — Citi

Thanks for taking the question, and good morning, guys. I was hoping if we could dig into the rental revenue guidance a little bit more, especially in light of the CapEx that you're guiding. I mean, it would seem like you're adding roughly 10% to your fleet and then growing 5% to 8% off of that added OEC. So I'm just trying to understand the underlying dollar use that's being assumed in the guidance. I mean, just on the surface, it would seem maybe like dollar u could actually be flat to maybe negative year over year in 2027, and just want to make sure that I'm thinking about that the right way.

Speaker 11

Sure. Thanks, Kyle, and good morning. The actual – actually, you can't quite tell from the guide what the average is because you'll know the phasing of that, But that average fleet growth, in essence, in our plan is just shy of the midpoint of the rental revenue guidance. So, therefore, we would anticipate, you know, a slight progression from a dollar utilization standpoint. And as you would have heard Alex talk about in prepared remarks and some of the questions, of course, there's opportunity there from a pricing standpoint. If we can get a bit more momentum, which actually reminds me to another point of Annalise's question there, and I'll mix this into yours as well, Kyle. You know, we did see, you know, a bit of momentum there in rate when we look at Q4 versus Qs1 and 3, and we do have some positive rate embedded in that guide overall. So, therefore, you come out to a bit what you were thinking, but, again, it's certainly not the 10% growth that you were doing the quick math on.

Kyle Mengers, Analyst — Citi

It makes sense. That's helpful. And then I would just love to hear more about Reliant and the expansion opportunity you see. You talked about Reliant being in 14 of your top 50 markets. I'm curious how quickly you think you can scale that, what the pace of scaling that into additional markets out of your top 50 could look like.

Speaker 11

Yeah, sure. I mean, Kyle, this is what, as we said, we are remarkably excited about this addition of a specialty line of business. It's been a clear, you know, solution for customers. It's been lacking out of our lineup for years. And not only from an expansion standpoint, you know, I'll say this gently, but Aries only has 17 locations. It's a nice spread across the country, mostly the eastern seaboard, a bit in the upper Midwest, and then, you know, Washington and California. So there will be significant greenfield expansion with the team, which the team has in the plans for the year. I think it will be a bit higher than what we've expressed in terms of overall greenfields as a result of ARIES as we just closed on the deal May 1st. But this will range from mega projects where we have so much request and demand. Think back to the investor day in March. You would have heard from Kyle talk about that slide 55 from the deck that talks so much about these specialty verticals that we have and the clear opportunity for adding a few there that we don't quite yet represent. And you would have remembered in the very early part of that presentation in March where we talked about the typical structural drivers of the structural growth engine that we're leading. And one of the nuances or newer realities of that structural growth is customers are looking for a solutions provider with increased scale, increased breadth, increased depth, increased expertise in the offerings that we have. And Aries is a perfect example of that. We think there are a lot of opportunities in that market to simply leverage our cross-selling platform. You know, you've kind of worked out now what the revenue is since we said it's about 1% of the guide, and that is a business that we have a clear line of sight to double, you know, in just a few years' time by way of expansion, as I said. also some nice little tuck-ins that will go along with that as our platform

Operator

acquisition. Thank you. Our next question today is coming from Tammy Zaccaria from

Tammy Zaccaria, Analyst — JPMorgan

JPMorgan. Your line is now live. Hey, good morning. Thank you so much for taking my questions. I wanted to get some color on the rental revenue growth guide of 5 to 8 percent for the year. Could you give us some insights on what that means in

Alexander Pease, CFO

terms of specialty versus general rental? So I think as we indicated, we don't guide to the individual segments. But, you know, as we indicated, really the strong growth that we see in specialty will likely continue driven by non-construction and mega project activity. And so GT will continue to grow. So there's solid, stable growth in GT. But remember, in terms of the mix of business, GT is really where that exposure to the local non-residential construction piece plays out. So, GT will continue to face a bit of a mixed market. Its megaproject activity will remain strong. Its large national and strategic accounts will remain strong, but its local non-residential construction market we're anticipating remains stable but not back into growth mode. So you'll see a relative weighting towards specialty, which, just to reemphasize the point, that will also impact the margin profile as we start talking about next year.

Tammy Zaccaria, Analyst — JPMorgan

Understood. That's very helpful. And my second question is, I was hoping to get some comments on the first quarter revenue and margin performance. Should we expect first quarter revenue growth and margin to be in the realm of the full year guide, which is 4.5% to 7.5% revenue growth and EBITDA margin flat-ish?

Alexander Pease, CFO

So let me sort of explain how we expect the year to unfold. So in terms of top-line growth, I think it's fair to say we continue to expect, you know, growth in the quarterly sequence in line with the growth that we experienced or the growth that we're guiding to, you know, with normal seasonality taken into effect. In terms of margin progression, we expect margin progression to advance as we get into the back half of the year, and that really is going to be bolstered by some of the cost sort of operating excellence initiatives that we have in place, as well as an anticipation that general tool growth will accelerate as we get into the back half of the year. So some of this mix effect that we've been talking about will likely mitigate. But, you know, I'll draw your attention to give you some confidence behind the guide. I'll draw your attention to the slide in the deck, which is the fleet on rent slide. And you'll see the first couple months of this year are certainly trending positive, which gives us some level of confidence, again, not only for the year, but for the quarter.

Operator

Thanks, Danny. Thank you. Our next question today is coming from Katie Fleischer from KeyBank Capital Markets. Your line is now live.

Katie Fleischer, Analyst — KeyBanc Capital Markets

Hey, good morning, guys. I heard you mention, you know, it sounds like you're assuming pretty stable growth in the local accounts within the 2027 outlook. So we've talked about this at length on other earnings calls, but now that we're in an environment where rates are likely coming up rather than coming down, What do you think it will take to finally see an inflection with those customers?

Speaker 11

Katie, first of all, I think in your question, you may have said that we're expecting growth in that or some moderate growth in that throughout the year. Let's be clear, we're expecting it really to remain benign. So, therefore, it's in this sort of stable but flat environment for the year. You know, if there were a surprise, that would be great. It's not reflected in our rental revenue guide. But, you know, you're right. You know, it's why we put the Fed funds rate on the leading indicator slide. You know, we do see interest rates, you know, higher for longer is what it feels, at least at the moment. But at the same time, we are seeing really encouraging demand by way of these projects entering planning. And our experience has been over time, there is a very high correlation between, you know, that the momentum index and what ultimately translates into starts. What you'll see, of course, in the starts forecast and the put in place forecast from Dodge, they're not quite flipping that over into those put in place figures. but it's something that we'll be watching very closely. But I will add, and Alex just talked about, you know, the strength really and the resilience of the general tool business that is most reliant on that end market. And what that tells us is the business, the team, they're just winning more. They're winning more in sort of a flattish local non-res environment. And I also pointed out during the fair remarks of what our view is of a very stable, a healthy supply and demand mix, which is also contributing. And then, you know, another thing just pointing out in terms of where some of that growth is coming from, because even when you look at local non-res, it's not all created equal. And if you look at, for instance, you know, we have for a long time always tracked our top 200 customers. Our top 200 customers these days make up about 25% of our rental revenue, and our top 200 customers are growing in the 13%, 14% range year-over-year in 2026 as compared to, you know, obviously the overall growth that we saw in the business and also in general tools. So, look, we will be the first to let you know if we see any sort of inflection point in that local non-res, but for the time being in our guide,

Katie Fleischer, Analyst — KeyBanc Capital Markets

it is status quo. Okay, thanks for the color there. And then turning to M&A, can you just talk about some of the other areas for growth in the business that you could potentially target? I know Power and HVAC has been really strong. Some of the other specialty solutions that you showed off at your analyst day, just give us a sense of, you know, what you're looking towards as you think about more growth through acquisitions?

Speaker 11

I mean, I'll refer you back to that slide 55 from the investor day. And if you look at all of those lines of business, virtually every single one of those, we look for additional bolt-ons to add to that overall geographic solutions that we're providing for our customers, density, and in some cases, you know, a nuanced line that they have. If you take, for instance, some of the live events that Alex referred to, and we did this great deal last year called ARC's Perimeters, and that has been a significant add-on to some of these live events that we've talked about and even into the mega project space. That is a great contributor to, you know, what ultimately falls into one of those other specialty lines. I don't want to give away too much here. I think you can use your imagination and know that there is still a segment or two out there that we don't have as part of our overall portfolio that, you know, ourselves and the business development team are always exploring what those opportunities are. But rest assured, there is a robust pipeline that remains in terms of M&A landscape, and our people are actively seeking additions that fold into one of our now lines of business or creates a complementary new line of business.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question today is coming from David Razzo from Evercore ISI. Your line is now live.

David Razzo, Analyst — Evercore ISI

Hi. Thank you for the time. I'm just trying to think about the margin structurally, really, in the whole industry, but you in particular as well, with the ancillary revenue growth. I'm just trying to think about – I know the return on capital, the return on investment on those services are – it is high. I appreciate that. But the ability to push price or raise the margins on those revenues, because the more specialty is going to outgrow GenRent, GenTools. and I'm generalizing, but especially also brings with it probably more ancillary revenues, it's hard to see when we're going to not have a negative headwind with that when it comes to the margin. And I'm just trying to understand the ability to raise price on those ancillary revenues to improve the margin. Or is it just the return on capital is just so strong, the industry is just accepting that's all we can charge for ancillary revenues because everybody wants a higher return on capital. I'm just trying to understand because it just feels like it's a trend that would just take a really strong local construction market recovery to not continue to have this negative mix unless we raise price.

Alexander Pease, CFO

So let me open it up, and then Brendan will add some color if I miss anything. First, I want to underscore, we mentioned it at least half a dozen times in the call, but I think it's important, there is a significant reversal of a provision from the balance sheet. So, that number is around $28 million. That explains, you know, a bit around a third of the margin compression. So, I think it's, as you're thinking about it, you need to take that out of the equation. about another third of the margin compression was driven by this activity volume related cost which again as we get into higher growth and higher utilization some of those volume related costs should mitigate as well so really you know the mix effect you're you're talking to keep it simple you're talking about a third of the overall compression so let's just calibrate on that point first. Second of all, you know, the ancillary piece, let's break that down a little bit. So the largest portion of that is erection and dismantling revenue. And that will always be kind of lumpy. If you get a really big refinery overhaul, as an example, where you have a lot of scaffolding, that's going to carry with it a lot of E&D revenue. When we had a lot of these live events with big power and HVAC contracts and you're pulling a lot of cable and you're moving a lot of stuff in, that's going to have a lot of E&D revenue. That's really attractive. There's no capital associated with that at all. And so it's, you know, great ROI business, but it is a lower margin. Call it, you know, 10, 15% or so. Next big bucket is going to be re-rental expense. So re-rental, the easiest way to think about this is, again, in the power and HVAC example would be switchgear where we don't actually own that. We have a third party that we have a relationship with, and we obviously can't charge the same margins that we would if we own the equipment. Now, that's really attractive stuff because to the prior question on M&A, where do you think one of our big fishing pools is as we think about, you know, businesses we'd like to own? and it's businesses where we have a high level of re-rental expense. So that is sort of one of the ways we feed the funnel. So that is the next bucket. And then really the last big bucket is around fuel surcharges. So as you would expect when you have very elevated fuel expense, as we've seen the last six months as the war in Iran has sort of unfolded in the Strait of Hormuz, you would anticipate you have a lot higher revenue because you're passing on that fuel expense, but you're, again, not able to charge quite as much. Now, it doesn't degrade margins. It's just a narrower margin because of the high fuel expense. So, you know, all of that to say there's nothing structural that's going on, no structural degradation in the margin profile. Some of it's a function of growth coming more from specialty than GT. That's a good thing. That's a high ROI business. It's a high solution-oriented business. It's a business that we can pass on great. And some of it, some of these other factors that I pointed to. Okay, no, I appreciate it.

Speaker 11

David, I would just add, I would encourage you to, let's pay attention as we go through the year of the segments themselves in terms of the margins. So as we improve upon the compression we experienced in this current year, the year just gone by, and I'll remind you that in the year prior, we actually progressed margins. So we progressed margins, give or take 140 basis points in FY25. We gave up 210 basis points in the current year. But let's watch those segments as they move because that's probably the more important part. You know, when we win one of these projects that Alex was referring to, we celebrate that win. It's good, profitable growth. However, to your point, you know, our ability to be able to, which is actually part of this dynamic customer pricing program that we now have in 15 of our markets, it's not just the rental rate. It is also some of those ancillary lines, such as transport, et cetera. So the more momentum we gain around that, certainly that will be accretive to margin. and then, of course, the operational excellence initiatives that you would have seen in New York.

David Razzo, Analyst — Evercore ISI

I appreciate the conversation. Thank you so much.

Operator

Thanks, David. Thank you. Our next question today is coming from Neil Tyler from Rothschild & Company Redburn. Your line is now live.

Neil Tyler, Analyst — Rothschild & Company Redburn

Yeah, good morning, guys. Thank you. Perhaps first question to pick up on your comments just then, Brendan. And specifically within General Tool over the next 12 months, I appreciate you don't guide, you know, at either revenue or margin by segment. But should we assume the same sort of margin dynamics as you're describing for the group within General Tool and namely by the end of the year that, you know, that, you know, margins should be sort of flat to up compared to this year? And I guess, you know, are we there for sort of through the trough when it comes to, you know, the year-on-year margin dynamics? That's the first question, please, in general tool specifically.

Speaker 11

Yeah, Neil, I think we would expect an inflection point as we progress through the year for margins with general tool as well. So, yes.

Neil Tyler, Analyst — Rothschild & Company Redburn

Great. Thank you. And then just coming back to your comment on the funnel and the fact that that's sort of increased by two and a half times in the space of a quarter, can you just go back to perhaps how much – the timing difference between those sort of large projects and what sort of level of costs you're booking in Q4 compared to sort of quarterly run rate that you were booking previously? And, you know, what typically would be the delay between those costs and the revenues coming through?

Speaker 11

I mean, just to be clear, you know, as we load in, there are the costs you would expect associated with that. But the real dynamic is this. We will load in, let's just pick a megaproject as a, for instance, sort of a mid-sized megaproject where we may be targeting $45 to $50 million of fleet costs on that project. And let's just say we're doing that with, you know, seven or eight team members, mostly field service technicians and equipment rental specialists that go along with those projects. Early on, you will begin putting some of those assets on rent, and you'll drive some billing revenue with that. However, it will be at a lower utilization appreciably than you will be at about month three, month four, as you start to reach the crest of that project after our load-in. So then you'll go from, say, 30%, 40% time utilization early on to 70%, 80% time utilization as you reach that crest. that crest going to last you two to three years depending on the project and you're still going to have the same seven or eight people or so on that site so you really start to get some leverage from that so you will have some early on um uh compression there and we would have seen that in q4 and as as we've just spoken to in terms of the way we think the margin dynamic plays through the year uh we'll see that improve as we get later in the year and then i think it's also worth mentioning in part with your first question. Remember these initiatives around market logistics that you got so much color on during our investor day and our market field services and market service operations. We have the ability to actually deliver for every 1% improvement, we have a $100 million opportunity to unlock from a revenue standpoint at really attractive margins. So that incremental that we unlock comes at even better margins. So those are initiatives where we're playing the long game in improving our processes, improving the service that we're bringing to our customers, and ultimately make that turn from a margin standpoint.

Operator

Thank you. Our final question today is from Alan Wells from Jeffrey's. Your line is now live.

Alan Wells, Analyst — Jeffries

Hey, good morning, Brennan. Good morning, Alex. Most of my questions have been answered, so just two quick clarification ones for me. Can I just check in on the event revenue? I think you called out $70 million. Can you confirm that was all in Q4 and largely kind of deemed as exceptional in nature? And given, I think, you called out things like the World Cup, I'm assuming that there will be some impact in Q1 as well, if you potentially could quantify what you know there. That's my first question. And then secondly, just on the acquisition side, the comments you made on Ryan, you said it would be about 1% impact on the revenue number in 2027. So call it about $100-plus million of revenue if you've paid $650 million for that six-and-a-half times sales. Is that the normal type of valuation for this type of business? And maybe just talk a little bit about how you think about valuation and these types of assets.

Speaker 11

Yeah, let me take your second first. That is the, I quoted you, total rental revenue, not total revenue. So it's a much higher total revenue number, as I would have explained, so it's not the sort of rental revenue multiple that you alluded to. And just for sake of a follow-on question there, as you know, we don't quote individual deal multiples. Instead, you know, every few years when we do an investor day, We unpack a few years' worth of M&A and give the average multiple because, you know, all specialties and all businesses are not created equally, and therefore we value them differently from one to the next. I think that Alex is a bit thinking I shouldn't have said the $70 million number if for no other reason than he was not talking about Q4, to be clear, more anticipated revenue from a series of FIFA's, you know, UFC fights and other things that we are very active in in Q1.

Operator

Thank you. We reached the end of our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over for any further closing comments.

Speaker 11

Great. Thank you, Operator. and thank you all for joining this morning. We look forward to speaking with you and giving you an update after our Q1 results. So we will look forward to speaking with you in September.

Operator

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day.

Speaker 11

We thank you for your participation today.