SCL Partner Harrison McAvoy was recently quoted about the planned acquisition of H&E Equipment Services by United Rentals and the potential for antitrust enforcers to scrutinize the deal.
The report in Mergermarket, published shortly after the deal was pulled and refiled, considers how enforcers might analyze the deal and the markets in question:
Despite the rental equipment business space appearing to be fragmented, there are only a limited number of large national players, said Harrison McAvoy, an antitrust partner at Shinder Cantor Lerner. As a result, he noted that a deal of this size could have drawn scrutiny from regulators under the Biden administration and has the potential to do the same under Trump.
National accounts brought in 44% of the acquiror’s revenues during 2024 as compared to 43% in 2023, and the top 10 customers contributed 5% of its total revenues as compared to 4% in 2023, according to United Rentals’ recent 10-K.
McAvoy, of Shinder Cantor Lerner, said that to some extent, equipment rental businesses are in localized markets, limited by proximity to the construction site. That said, a big segment of United Rental’s customers are national accounts. He said these are larger customers, likely operating in multiple states, and so are likely to be negotiating on a broader basis and are priced differently than your small-scale or irregular customers.
The company noted that it would have a dual focus on further optimization of its customer mix and fleet mix to provide better service to its target accounts, which are primarily large construction and industrial customers and select local contractors to generate improved returns.
McAvoy added that the larger rental equipment companies are competing by offering the full menu of equipment that their larger customers need, and there are fewer companies competing at that scale.
Harrison’s comments were published in the Mergermarket article, “H&E Equipment Services/United Rentals pull-and-refile strategy may portend regulatory interest, or companies’ confidence,” (paywall) by Pooja Sarkar.
