Herc Holdings Inc. (HRI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

All right. Great. So I think we'll get started here. My name is Adam Seiden, and I lead the U.S. machinery and construction effort for Barclays. Joining us for this session, we have the folks from Herc Rentals. So Larry, Mark as well as Leslie from the IR side in the audience. So the format of this session is going to be mostly a fireside chat with myself and the Herc folks. But before we begin, I wanted to pass it off to Larry, maybe for a couple of quick comments. So thanks for being here.

Thanks, Adam. I guess, it's still morning. Good morning, everybody. For those of you that don't know us, I'm Larry Silber, President, CEO of Herc Rentals. Mark Humphrey is our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Leslie Hunziker, is here with us from our Investor Relations team. Adam, glad -- thank you for having us here in Miami. Start off, of course, everybody remembers that we do have our safe harbor statement here on our first slide, and we ask you to review that and understand that the information here is regarding non-GAAP financial measures. Let me just move to our first slide to tell you a little about us. We operate as a leading full-line equipment manufacturer, one of the leading full-line equipment suppliers, rental suppliers in North America. We operate with a vision, a mission and values around a purpose-driven company, and we -- our purpose is really to supply our customers and our communities with equipment to build a brighter future. About us a little bit, Herc has been in business for 60 years. And today, we currently have about 9,600 team members. We operate out of over 600 locations across North America, 46 states and the 5 Western Canadian provinces, and we operate in an addressable market that's approaching $90 billion today. We're a company that operates from a set of core strengths that differentiates us in what is still a highly fragmented market in the industry, but we're in a much stronger position today than any time in the history of this company in our industry. We're an industry leader that's been generating above-market growth through investments in fleet, in new greenfields and of course, in M&A. We are disciplined stewards of capital in our industry and we focus where scale matters, really paying attention to secular trends, infrastructure spending, the industrial mega projects that we all hear about. And we're continued -- we're set up to continue to play a major role and take significant share in those spaces that we operate in. We are continuing to invest in technology. We believe we are a technology leader today and have digital platforms that interact not only internally, but externally with our customers and they are allowing us to scale with effectiveness in the marketplace. We're executing on a multifaceted diversification strategy to improve our operating results and ensure resiliency certainly in uncertain times by focusing on the top 100 MSAs. We like operating in big metropolitan markets. We think that is recession-resilient and it's something that has allowed us to continue to perform over time. And finally, we are a market consolidator. With this past June, we closed on the largest transaction in our industry's history, acquiring the #4 player in the marketplace, and that was our 54th transaction in the last 5 years. We feel we are well positioned with that. H&E was the name of the company. We have integrated that quite well. It had over 160 locations in mostly desirable marketplaces along the Southeast, the Gulf Coast and the Mountain West region. The combination of Herc and H&E has increased our branch network, our customer reach and certainly, the efficiencies that come with scale and allowing us to be as big as what we are. H&E is depicted in the black dots here on the map that you're seeing. They had about 160-plus locations, combine that with 460. So we are a company of scale and continuing to grow. The transaction, we believe, accelerated our growth plans by 4 to 5 years with 1 large transaction, and we're pretty much well integrated. Since the closing in June, we've completed and made swift progress through a complete IT integration completed in 90 days in record time. We've expanded our field operating structure. We've completed a comprehensive sales territory optimization exercise, and we finished a fleet optimization exercise as well to have the right fleet in the right markets. So that we can enter into our up season here as we approach the second quarter. So we're almost done with all of the branch optimization. We have a few of our specialty locations that will be completed here in the next 30 days. That will be fully staffed, fully trained and fleeted up and ready to go for our up period. So this positions us for a great opportunity as we enter our peak season, with a stronger foundation, allowing us to execute more effectively on our strategic plan and drive accelerated growth in the back half of 2026. We're operating from -- as a reminder, a network, a branch network that is now of scale, a broad fleet mix technology leadership. We believe we have one of the leading technology platforms in the industry. Capital and operating discipline is the foremost in which we operate, superior customer service, and it positions us to manage over a cycle and generate sustainable growth in the long term. So with that, we are committed to becoming the supplier of the employer and the investment of choice in the rental industry. With that, Adam, you can begin your questioning and maybe I'll -- let me leave it there.

Yes. Yes. We'll have a Herc load, yes, might as well. Changes up a little bit. All right. Well, thank you for that, Larry. Appreciate the opening remarks there. So -- my God, 54 transactions, 5 years. That's a lot going on. But the big one, right, which is H&E. So curious what's proven better or worse? Or has it been more manageable than you expected or not?

Well, obviously, let me begin by saying we had a bit of a surprise going into the transaction. We -- as you know, we expected to have about 10% dis-synergies over the course of the transaction. When we finally closed, we had significantly greater dis-synergies than what we expected. So a bit of a surprise, but we've recovered from that, and we've been able to stabilize the organization quickly, stabilize the sales force and get everybody up and trained and running. So from a positive side, our IT integration was a home run. We completed that in a record of 90 days, complete without a hiccup, off and running. Everybody is on the same platform as of the beginning of Q4. So a solid home run there. Branch optimization. We've now completed another home run. And then certainly, as Mark can talk to, the cost synergies have come in at an accelerated level, and that's certainly another home run. We think the fleet is fully optimized at this point as we bring in new fleet for the seasonal uptick in business when demand upticks. So we already put in over $100 million worth of synergy specialty fleet that we're getting traction on, and that's been a positive. We saw that happen in Q4, where we had a fair amount of cross-selling synergy on specialty gear and we're seeing that acceptance at a rapid pace. So that's really positive, something we're excited about. And the other, I'd say, thing that helped us is we've really gotten to know their customer base and their relationships, what I would call the big regional accounts are outstanding. And we've been able to now bridge those relationships, introduce Herc and gain traction at some of those accounts. So that's been real positive.

What I love is when I talk with you, there's always nice baseball analogies, and I'm a huge baseball fan. So home run, single, double -- yes, that's true. Don't have me for being a Mets fan. So I guess, from a qualitative standpoint, is H&E more valuable to Herc today than when you signed the deal?

I think when I think about the H&E transaction, right, I mean -- and Larry mentioned it, but we accelerated this expansion strategy by 5, maybe even 6 years in sort of completing this transaction. And so in this industry, scale wins and H&E sort of coming in 7 of the top 10 markets, 11 of the top 20 sort of gave us scale that we didn't otherwise have. And so I think when you think about sort of the benefits longer term for what this transaction does for us, right, it's specialty expansion. Cross-selling specialty into that customer base that Larry was talking about, huge opportunities for us over the next 3 years. I think it does -- with the increased scale, it certainly makes us a larger player on the mega project side here as we roll into 2026 and beyond. I think that those elements of this transaction sort of aren't necessarily shining through in the first 6 months of the transaction. But over the long term, 3- to 5-year horizon of this transaction, I think that all of the things that I'm speaking of come to fruition.

Got it. And when you think through some of those synergies, there's been a bunch of -- notched them already. On the cost side, you're building in, more cost in 2026. So it feels like that is achievable. I guess the big question is going to be on the revenue side. So your thought around the revenue side, whether those synergies could be achieved a little bit maybe some cost too.

Yes. So as you mentioned, right, the cost synergies, we really thought would probably take 2 years to sort of run rate in. And it looks like we achieved about $35 million of cost synergies inside 2025 and really expect to have $125 million of cost synergies impacting 2026 from an EBITDA perspective. So a big win there. On the revenue side, and that's the one that Larry was talking about the dis-synergy portion. I think the piece of that, that's in our control or at least more so in our control is sort of the gross synergy. How much revenue synergy can we generate from the existing customer base that we acquired. And so that gross number is about $390 million of rev synergy that we see over a 3-year period. Larry mentioned, we accomplished about $40 million of that, give or take, in the back 6 of 2025, an incremental sort of $100 million to $120 million should be in 2026. So you sort of stop there and you say, okay, well, that's about 35% to 40% of the gross synergy. And I think the remainder of that sort of ratably comes in over the next couple of years. The dis-synergy side of that, I think, is a bit more of a question, I think, that it's probably a longer horizon to sort of claw back, if you will, that dis-synergy piece as you work your way through this sort of 3-year guide. And I think a couple of things in my mind stand out. One, I think we need some macro local market stimulus to sort of make that happen and then have the confidence to invest the fleet into that, that sort of helps in that recovery. So that's sort of the response to the revenue side of that equation.

Great. And then you were talking a little bit about the cross-sell and we've brought up specialty as well. So what early evidence are you seeing on the legacy H&E customer base adopting more specialty?

Yes. Great question. As Mark just mentioned and I might have mentioned earlier, in Q4, we saw some of that actually happen with about $40 million worth of specialty cross-sell realization through the H&E customer base and through the H&E sales organization. We're beginning to see them take a hold of that, understand and learn that product portfolio and introducing that to their customer base. So early days, but we have already seen that. We have the gear. We have these 50-plus locations that will all be fully completed through the branch optimization here in the next 30 days. So they will all be ready to roll as we enter our peak season and all the training is done and customers have been introduced to the product portfolio. It's now a question of asking for the order, right?

Sure. So on -- thinking through the CapEx guidance that was given yesterday -- so switching just a little bit, just to be like the CapEx levels that you came out with for '26, how does that look on a run rate basis going forward? And I guess how did H&E affect your views on '26 CapEx as a whole of their fleet.

Great question. I think let me take the H&E side of that first. I think what we acquired was a younger fleet in comparison to the overall sort of age profile of the Herc fleet. And so we're only going to probably dispose of $700 million, give or take, in 2026. Whereas in 2025, as we sort of rightsized that fleet, it was more like $1.2 billion of disposal. And so what that's going to allow us to do, conserve capital a little bit on the disposal side, we'll put that fleet to work and age our fleet out to something that looks more like an average age of the Herc fleet in that 47, 48 months sort of profile. On the gross CapEx side, at the midpoint of the guide that we gave yesterday, it's about $1 billion of gross spend. And that will sort of layer in, Larry was talking about the branch optimization sort of completing through Q1. Sort of the time line of that is -- and it will look rather normal to historical where about 65% of that fleet will be coming in at sort of the back end of Q2 and Q3 that sort of provides that stimulus into season and then a little bit of flywheel into 2027.

Got it. That's helpful on the cadence there. So local market has been talked about a little bit already today. So how would you characterize the rental market, I guess, today versus a year ago? And then if you think about not just on the demand side from local megas, et cetera, but how would you characterize the supply-demand balance as well?

Yes. Look, I think supply is readily available. And I think we are operating in a, what I would call, a pretty disciplined market where there's not a lot of oversupply. And I think certainly, the big 3 are being very responsible on the amount of fleet that we bring in and put to work. I don't think the demand environment has changed much from a year ago. You still have a very, what I would call, stable but tough local market environment, and that's more regional in my mind. I think everything west of the -- Rocky Mountains and West has a challenging local market environment. Primarily because there's no megaprojects going on in any of those markets. And when you have a mega project, that helps to spur on some local activity. The mega projects, there's $1 trillion worth of work in the pipeline. They're very active in most of the areas where we acquired H&E assets, with the exception of the western locations, which wasn't their most dense. But that's what we're seeing is it's a regional bifurcation on the local market. But wherever there's mega projects, there's pretty ample activity, both at the mega project and in the local market.

Got it. So then what do you guys need to see? Or what are some of the indicators, I guess, that you're looking at to get -- gain confidence that the local market is making forward progress here?

Do you want to take it? We don't see it making progress, but go ahead.

I think that -- I think rate cuts stimulus is a big factor here and maybe even a little more pointed than just rate cut stimulus. I think it's rate cut stimulus that's working its way into the 10-year treasury from a decision to build, make, lease, whatever you're talking about from a local commercial perspective, right, that ROI has to make sense. And so I think that is probably the piece of this that we would like to see more of in order to provide that stimulus into the local. And I'll leave it there.

Yes. On the mega project side, I think you were talking a little bit about the 10% to 15% share of mega projects yesterday. But I guess I'll ask it anyway. Has your participation in mega projects been where you wanted to be? Are you seeing any sort of changes in competition? Is that intensifying and so forth?

Yes. No, great question. Look, we have been a player since about '23 when we first put our focus on these mega projects, and we've grown nicely, and we made sure that whatever we went after, we could deliver on, and we were a Bonafide supplier to that. We've continued to grow that share in those as those customers have gained confidence in us and have moved to new projects and have taken us along with them to new projects. Certainly, the acquisition of H&E has given us more scale in a number of those markets, have given us locations, fleet and people to be able to support projects, more projects. We're at about the midpoint today in terms of our share, but we don't consider being on a mega project unless you're really named as a primary or secondary supplier. As a case in point, when we acquired H&E, they said they were on a number of mega projects. Well, in reality, they weren't named a primary or secondary on any project. So it's one thing to say you're there. And another thing to say you're really mission-critical to that contractor. So we want to be mission-critical. We are mission-critical in many projects, and we're going to continue to grow that. And certainly, H&E will enable us to grow towards the top end of that range. And we'll see if we can go beyond that based upon where we stand, once we're -- the full integration is done, and we understand what those customer requirements are going forward.

Yes. And I see your point, there's a difference between being on a mega project and on a mega project, exactly. Which is well taken. On the economics, though, of the mega projects as a whole, I know we've had this conversation for a couple of years, it feels like. But now that -- some of these projects are starting to move through their life cycle and so forth. Curious, are those projects performing the profitability that you thought they would? And how does that compare versus gen rent?

Yes. No, great question. I think that as we sort of -- we can only speak for what it is that we're experiencing. But given sort of the level of fleet required when you're in this sort of primary or secondary, it certainly lends to less touches of the gear and higher timing. And so when those 2 things get mixed in and then you begin to add in sort of your specialty solutions into these projects as well. And generally speaking, that's what happens. You're probably going to lead with your gen rent offerings and then provide specialty solutions on top of that to yield up. Those sort of economics look very, very similar, Adam, to what it is that we're experiencing sort of in that consolidated margin profile perspective.

Got it. So thinking through '26 from the conversations we had yesterday and you had yesterday, I'm sure too. Is there a path for rate and utilization to improve in 2026, if not for Herc but for the industry? Just curious on your broader views there.

Yes. I think from a rate perspective and sort of the way we thought about 2026 is rates stable. I think there's probably a case back half where you could get some lift from a rate perspective, but that's not necessarily how we thought about or planned for. I do think from a utilization perspective, however, that we would anticipate sort of sequential and year-over-year improvement sort of as we work our way out of this front side of the year and beginning to move into the back half of the year, both sequentially and year-over-year. I do see improvement possibility there.

Great. So I wanted to touch on a little bit. We were talking about the markets here, local and national and so forth. Obviously, a lot of players, some guys primary, some secondary. First call, second call sort of thing on the project. So how competitive do you see the marketplace today? Is it any meaningfully different today versus how it's been over the course of your guys careers around the space.

Over the course of my career?

You can start talking about Ingersoll Rand here a little bit.

That would be a long time, but look, let's just sort of deal in the last couple of years. I don't think that there's been any significant difference since we saw the inflection in terms of local markets trailing off and sort of becoming challenging, if you will, and mega projects growing. I think the nature of the competitiveness in the market has remained somewhat the same. I don't see there being anything that's sort of a dynamic that pushes you in one direction or another. I think the marketplace is disciplined. I think certainly us and our larger peers are disciplined in the market. I think manufacturers are certainly disciplined in terms of pushing equipment into the market. And so I think the competitiveness is what it's been.

Fantastic. So I guess I'll just throw it out there to say like what needs to happen to see the business get back to kind of that like 50%, 60% flow through within the business?

Yes. I mean, really what you're asking, right, is that margin expansion really probably at least where we sit today, is talking about incrementals that would be in this sort of 50-plus sort of range. And I do think that as we were just talking about sort of how sequentially this year plays out, I do think that you sort of work your way through that front half and create that stability and growth engine as you work your way through Q2 and into Q3. I think that's when you start to see sort of larger incrementals beginning to build. And then if the behavior of the fleet in comes in as we've sort of talked about, then you're also creating a little bit of flywheel into 2027 as you've got some growth fleet sitting there as dry powder as you work your way into 2027. And so I think you'll begin to see that aspect of the business change as we work our way out of and through this stabilization period of this acquisition.

Excellent. So maybe we'll switch over to the audience response questions here. We're going to have to lose the forklift. All right. So first question here is do you currently own the stock? Yes, overweight, market weight, underweight or no. Once the timer comes up, guys, that's the best time to queue in. All right. About 70% of the room says no. Moving to the next question. What is your general bias towards the stock right now, positive, negative or neutral? We've got 3 positives here from the 3 management -- all right. It's about split half and half between positive and neutral. Next question. In your opinion, through cycle EPS growth for Herc will be above peers, in line with peers or below? Okay. About 40% above peers, about 60% of so in line with peers. Next question, please. In your opinion, what should Herc do with excess cash, bolt-on M&A, larger M&A, repos, divvies, debt pay down or internal investment? Okay. Overwhelming response towards debt pay down, makes sense post the deal. And then we'll do the last one and come back to this with the team here. But the last question here is around valuation. In your opinion, on what multiple of '26 earnings should Herc trade, and it bands from less than 10x to higher than 21x. That was a long 1 second, right? It was -- about half the room in 13 to 15x band, about 40% in the one right above that actually. All right. So cash. It seems like the room wants you to pay down some debt. So we're -- so do Larry. So where do we stand with that in terms of the ability to pay down some debt into the balance of this year, getting into that target range? I know you've talked a little bit about it, but you can reiterate that. And then I would be also curious to always have that conversation about free cash flow through the cycle, what the combined business can look like?

Absolutely what the fine business come up like. Yes. So I think we've stated publicly that we would like to be back at the top end of the 2 to 3x range by the end of 2027. We believe that, that is what we will accomplish. And so that is going to be accomplished through one, EBITDA expansion and utilizing free cash flow to pay down debt. So in 2026, sort of the current projection is $400 million to $600 million sort of range of free cash flow. And I think as I sort of think about this business as we sort of walk through this 3-year plan with this acquisition, right? The goal here is sort of as you sort of work your way through that, that you've structurally set this thing up from a scale perspective such that you're probably being -- you're probably free cash flowing, excuse me, in this 10% to 15% range of total revenue. And we think that, that's ultimately sustainable. That's about where 2026 would play out as well in terms of percentage to revenue. And we think that there could be a little bit of lumpiness of that in terms of fleet acquisition or fleet buy, if we're seeing things a little bit differently. But I think over the over the term, you would think about that as sort of a 10% to 15% range of your total revs.

Great. Well, I think that's a good place to leave it. So Larry, Mark, Leslie, let's join and thank them for being here.

Thank you for attending.