Sunbelt Rentals Holdings, Inc. (SUNB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Greetings, and welcome to the Sunbelt Rentals Fiscal Fourth Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Kevin Powers, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Kevin, please go ahead.

Great. Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Today, we're reviewing our fourth quarter and year-end 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 Horgan, our Chief Executive Officer; and Alex Pease, our Chief Financial Officer. I'll now turn the call over to Brendan.

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 5. 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 6 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 4%. This performance demonstrates the continued strength, resilience and diversity of our business and end markets. In addition, rental rates remained 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 strength 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 nonresidential 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 7 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 4.0 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 graft protection, temporary structures, temporary walls and temporary fencing, which entirely aligns with our Sunbelt 4.0 strategy. Aries brings 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 underpenetrated 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 8. 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 nonresidential construction. The Momentum figures and starts on this slide feed into the put in place figures on Slide 9. 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 nonresidential, large and a broad sector range of mega projects 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, end 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 3 factors. First, and consistent 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 related 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 rerent. When these profitable revenues outpace pure rental 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 in 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, continues 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 a 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 continue to be mixed, Local nonresidential construction markets, which I've mentioned, remained in this equilibrium state, where we believe starts are generally in balance with completions. Therefore, growth is being driven by the ongoing strength of mega project landscape and the broader construction markets. North America 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 & HVAC, 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 4x its entry and Specialty nearly 3x. 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?

Thank you, Brendan, 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 has already explained, our adjusted EBITDA margin cost factors impacting our fourth quarter results were similar to our 9-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 mega project 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, with the full year margin at 41.9%. Absent the U.K. business, North America margins were 43.4%, 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 pretax 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 nonrecurrence of a favorable state tax adjustment recorded in the prior year period. The combination of these 2 line items added $0.07 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%, with rental revenue growth of 2.1%. In Q4, rental revenue growth accelerated to 4.4% led by volume improvement and stable rates. Strength in mega projects helped mitigate moderated conditions in the local nonresidential construction market. In Q4, the adjusted EBITDA margin performance was the result of volume-led growth driving costs higher, most notably cost 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 & HVAC business increased by nearly 30%, led by load banks. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 45% declined compared to last year, mainly due to the onetime 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 margin 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 U.K. segment on Slide 18. Full year total revenue was $932 million, up 2.8%, with rental revenue growth of 3.1%. The U.K. 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-lien senior secured bank debt and $6.2 billion in senior notes. Net debt-to-EBITDA leverage stood at 1.6x, well within our stated target range of 1 to 2x. 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 Aries 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 24, resulting in a full year dividend of $1.125 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 dividend. 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 mega projects to remain an important driver and assume local nonresidential construction markets remain stable as our internal indicators continue to trend positively. In terms of profitability, we expect adjusted EBITDA between $4.85 billion 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 Aries 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 for the year as well. Finally, we expect net rental equipment CapEx of between $2.05 billion and $2.45 billion, and gross rental CapEx of between $2.45 billion 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 Aries. 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.

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 disciplined 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 1 to 2x. Turning to Slide 24. We will continue to execute against our well-known Sunbelt 4.0 strategic growth plan as we advance our 5 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 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 execution-driven culture compound over time and deliver superior outcomes. We have clear growth paths through share gains, specialty expansion and cluster 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 Instructions] Our first question today is coming from Rob Wertheimer from Melius Research.

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. And I know you mentioned a couple of factors on narrow pricing and so forth. Are you seeing drag from mega projects in the margin? I mean, what's the biggest kind of hold-up to growth there?

Yes. Rob, I'll start with that. And to begin with in terms of mega projects, as we 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, it's just this mix effect. First things first just being Specialty, right? This is a high margin, particularly operating profit and high ROI business. It'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 for instance, our pure rental revenue, so just what you charge for the rental rate of whatever the assets are, was -- were up 8% in the quarter, where the ancillary revenues, E&D, fuel, re-rental were up 32%, 33%. And therefore, you're going to have some compression overall on margin.

Let me just give you one additional color, point, on the mega projects. I think it's a really good question, and that actually points to the strength in the business and why we're so optimistic about 2027. If you look quarter 1, quarter 2, quarter 3 of this year, the valuation of the projects in the funnel was around $10 billion. If you look in quarter 4, that valuation jumped to around $25 billion. So more than 2x 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.

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

That's projects that we have actually won.

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

Next question is from Annelies Vermeulen from Morgan Stanley.

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 talked about rates being stable over the year. I'd be curious to hear how that trended in Q4 relative to the first 9 months of the year given some of the cost 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?

Yes. 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 onetime activity related to nonconstruction events, particularly around things like FIFA, the World Cup event, that's around the $70 million or so kind of onetime effect. I also think it's important, as we've said, the local nonresidential construction markets, which are so critical to our business, remain in equilibrium, so are certainly stable, but 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 rest assured, we feel really good about the momentum in the business and 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 we're starting to see some green shoots that are positive trends. Last point you mentioned on cost, 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 an 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 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 last point on mix would be the high ancillary growth. So in the quarter, ancillaries in Specialty grew north of 30% relative to pure rental growing just under 10%. So that's things like rerent, it's fuel surcharges, its erection and dismantling revenue. So all of those are very attractive high-ROI revenues, but come at 10% to 15% margin as opposed to double this strong sort of 50% or so margins in the pure rental side. So hopefully, that helps explain some of the dynamics.

Just to point, Annelies, 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, year 1, 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 stem 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, Annelies?

Yes, I think you covered all of it.

Our next question is coming from Kyle Menges from Citi.

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 ut that's being assumed in the guidance? I mean, just on the surface, it would seem maybe like dollar ut could actually be flat to maybe negative year-over-year in 2027. And I just want to make sure that I'm thinking about that the right way.

Sure, Kyle. The actual -- you can't quite tell from the guide what the average is because you don't have the phasing of that. But the average fleet growth, in essence, in our plan is just shy of the midpoint of the rental revenue guidance. So therefore, we would anticipate 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 Annelies' question there, and I'll mix this into yours as well, Kyle, we did see a bit of momentum there in rate when we look at Q4 versus Qs 1 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, certainly not the 10% growth that you were doing the quick math on.

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's the pace of scaling that into additional markets out of your top 50 could look like?

Yes, 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 solution for customers that's been lacking out of our lineup for years. And not only from an expansion standpoint, 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 Washington and California. So there will be a 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 it relates to Aries -- as a result of Aries as we just closed on the deal May 1. 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 the 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'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 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 acquisition.

Our next question today is coming from Tami Zakaria from JPMorgan.

I wanted to get some color on the rental revenue growth guide of 5% to 8% for the year. Could you give us some insights on what that means in terms of specialty versus general rental?

So I think as we indicated, we don't guide to the individual segment. But as we indicated, really the strong growth that we see in Specialty will likely continue driven by nonconstruction 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 nonresidential construction piece plays out. So GT will continue to face a bit of a mixed market. Its mega project activity will remain strong. Its large national and strategic accounts will remain strong. But it's local nonresidential construction market where 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.

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 flattish?

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 growth in the quarterly sequence in line with the growth that we experienced for the growth that we're guiding to, 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 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 of 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.

Our next question today is coming from Katie Fleischer from KeyBanc Capital Markets.

I heard you mention 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?

Katie, first of all, I think you -- 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 the sort of stable but flat environment for the year. If there were a surprise, that would be great. It's not reflected in our rental revenue guide. But you're right. That's why we put the Fed funds rate on the leading indicator slide. We do see interest rates 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 and [ dream ] planning. And our experience has been over time, there is a very high correlation between that the momentum index and what ultimately translates into starts. What you'll see, of course, in the starts forecast and to put in place forecast from Dodge, they're not 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, the strengths 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 nonres environment. And I also pointed out during the prepared remarks of what our view is of a very stable, good -- a healthy supply and demand mix, which is also contributing. And then another thing just pointing out in terms of where some of that growth is coming from, because even when you look at local nonres, it's not all created equal. And if you look at, for instance, we always -- 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, 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-reset. But for time being in our guide, it is status quo.

Okay. 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 & 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 what you're looking towards as you think about more growth through acquisitions.

Well, sure. 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, a nuanced line that they have. If you take, for instance, some of the live events that Alex referred to, we did this great deal last year called [ Arcs 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 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 2 out there that we don't have as part of our overall portfolio that ourselves and 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.

Our next question today is coming from David Raso from Evercore ISI.

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 gen rent, Gen Tools, and I'm generalizing, but especially also brings with 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 revenue 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...

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 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 a bit around 1/3 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 1/3 of the margin compression was driven by this activity volume-related costs, which, again, as we get into higher growth and higher utilization, some of those volume-related costs should mitigate as well. So really the mix effect, you're talking to keep it simple, you're talking about 1/3 of the overall compression. So let's just calibrate on that point first. Second of all, 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 & 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 a great ROI business. But it is a lower margin, call it 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 & 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 owned the equipment. Now that's really attractive stuff, because to the prior question on M&A, where do you think our -- one of our big fishing tools is as we think about businesses we'd like to own? It's businesses where we have a high level of re-rental expense. So that is sort of one of the ways we see 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 over the last 6 months since the war in Iran has sort of unfolded and in the Strait of Hormuz, you would anticipate you have a lot higher 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 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 rate. And some of it is some of these other factors that I pointed to.

I would just add, I would encourage you to -- let's pay attention as we go through the year the segments themselves, in terms of the margin. 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 FY '25. 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. When we win one of these projects that Alex is referring to, we celebrate that win. It's good, profitable growth. However, to your point, 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.

Our next question today is coming from Neil Tyler from Rothschild & Co. Redburn.

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

Yes, Neil, I think we would expect an inflection point as we progress through the year up for margins with General Tool as well. So yes.

Great. And then just coming back to your comment on the funnel and the fact that that sort of increased by 2.5x 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 what typically would be the delay between those costs and the revenues coming through?

Right. I mean, just to be clear, 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 mega project as a, for instance, sort of a midsized mega project where we may be targeting $45 million to $50 million of fleet cost on that project. And let's just say we're doing that with those 7 or 8 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 3, month 4 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 will last you 2 to 3 years, depending on the project. And you're still going to have the same 7 or 8 people or so on that site, so you really start to get some leverage from that. So you will have some early on compression there. And we would have seen that in Q4. And as we've just spoken to in terms of the way we think the margin dynamic plays through the year, 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've 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 and improving our processes, improving the service that we're bringing to our customers and ultimately make that turn from a margin standpoint.

Our final question today is from Allen Wells from Jefferies.

Most of my question has been answered, so just 2 quick clarification ones from 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 Reliant, you said it'd 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 6.5x sales. Is that the normal type of valuation for this type of type of business? And maybe just talk a little bit about how you think about valuation on these types of assets?

Yes. 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 rent to 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 every few years when we do an Investor Day, we unpack a few years' worth of M&A and give the average multiple. Because 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 that he was not talking about Q4, to be clear, more anticipated revenue from series of FIFAs, UFC fights and other things that we are very active in, in Q1.

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

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

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your lines at this time. And have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.