United Rentals, Inc. (NYSE:URI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Michael Feniger: Hey guys. Thanks for taking my question. Just we €“ I know there’s been a lot of talk of mega projects. We see Tesla announcing a $3.6 billion of new investments in two battery plants in Nevada. Just €“ we think about the economically sensitive areas of non-res like office and retail. Can you just help us understand when we think of these mega projects, how much more fleet on rent for these projects versus your typical office or retail? Are the terms and structures different? Is it different in terms of the multiyear visibility there, the different type of fleet required. Just curious if we see that trade-off over the next 12 months, 18 months, how we should kind of view that?

Matt Flannery: Yes. Michael, the type of projects vary so much that would be pretty hard to do. I mean outside if you’re thinking about towers, right, large towers, office building, which may be more limited in what type of fleet you would rent on it. All these projects have different needs. And the great thing about our product line is whether it’s early when they’re scratching dirt, whether he needs trench places from creating the infrastructure to then creating the structure to then finishing off the building. We’ve got the opportunity to cross-sell into all those needs. But as far as the volume needs, we do attribute models, they’re really hard to be predictive. I wouldn’t really say that it’s something that you can rely on.

I think the speed and the time to do the project and the sensitivity probably drives more variation of how much men, material and fleet they’re going to put on there, right? And it seems like nowadays everything is a fast-track project. That used to be a term 10 years ago, that meant they were going to do something quicker now it’s every project is fast-track. So, I think that has implications of driving more rental than anything else.

Michael Feniger: Thanks. And you guys highlighted all year that fleet productivity number was going to decelerate. I know you kind of gave us some puts and takes for 2023. But is the view that number continues to decelerate through 2023 or finds more stability at some point? Could you guys were kind of clear through the year how we should kind of prepare for that throughout the quarter? Just curious if there’s anything we could kind of prepare as we go through 2023 there directionally?

Matt Flannery: Yes, I mean, you see what’s embedded in our guidance on as reported basis, right? And within that range would be a different number anywhere. I won’t even say the number. You could do the work. But I think really the most important thing is that the environment’s good for us to continue to drive positive fleet productivity, even if time utilization doesn’t go up. And that’s really what matters. That’s the important part of it. And we will report this on a pro forma basis. They’ll be a little bit as reported drag from the 800 €“ bringing in the 800 fleet, but we’ll report that out and that’ll be a couple of points differentiation there, even between as reported and pro forma is what our expectation is. So, we’ll €“ it’s an output that we really don’t want to try to predict. But what our expectations are for are all embedded within our guidance.

Michael Feniger: Great. And just, I’ll sneak one last one. Just, I know we talked about power exposure, alternative energy, just on the traditional side, the upstream, midstream, downstream, just are you seeing more activity there? Is that actually accelerating? I’m just curious if you kind of touch on the traditional side?

Matt Flannery: Yes. It’s bit pretty consistent in terms of that progression. Hold on, I’m just turning something quickly, Mike. Give me one sec. So certainly continue to see strong momentum in upstream. I mentioned midstream has been kind of the one sector that has been a headwind for us this year. They’re €“ it’s relatively small, call it 2% of our total mix and downstream has been pretty steady as well. Chemical processing would be the same. So if we look at the business, it’s consistently been about 13% of our total business across the year.

Michael Feniger: Thank you.

Matt Flannery: Thank you, Mike.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Ken Newman with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Ken Newman: Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for squeezing me in here.

Matt Flannery: Good morning, Ken.

Ken Newman: Good morning. Matt, I wanted to go back to a couple of your comments that you made. Obviously, you gave a lot of good color on infrastructure spend opportunities earlier in the call. I think the guide implies, call it a low double-digit organic growth after you strip out Ahern. But maybe, is there any way you can help us try to size what the midpoint of guide assumes are the benefits from the trends we’re seeing in industrial restoring or your visibility on infrastructure projects?