Investors in US-focused plant and equipment hire group Ashtead (AHT) are in line for a double update next week as it celebrates its AGM (annual general meeting) on 2 September and reports its first-quarter figures a day later.

In June, the firm published its results for the year to April, which showed a small drop in revenue for the year but a 4% drop for the final quarter due to a soft US commercial construction market, with project completions outweighing starts, and a lower level of used equipment sales.

At the same time, general tool rental revenue was flattered slightly by hurricane response efforts, whereas this year there have been few extreme weather events in the US necessitating rebuilding, so revenue from the core business may disappoint unless the non-residential market picks up.

The specialty rental business did better last year with an 11% increase in turnover, driven by both volume and price, but again some of the uplift was thanks to hurricane response efforts which may not recur this year.

Due to the lack of revenue growth and an increase in interest costs and depreciation – the former caused by higher debt levels and the latter caused by lower utilisation of its growing fleet of equipment, as well as the impact of life cycle fleet inflation – operating profit and earnings per share were down.

For the current financial year, the firm has guided revenue expectations to flat to up 4%, so analysts and investors will be focused on that number, and on free cash flow guidance of $2.0 billion to $2.3 billion.

They will also no doubt want to know if the firm has a specific date in mind for moving its primary listing from London to New York, rather than a fairly vague ‘some time in the first quarter of 2026’.

UK UPDATES OVER THE NEXT 7 DAYS

FULL-YEAR RESULTS

1 Sep: XP Factory

2 Sep: Alumasc

4 Sep: Genus, Newmark Security

FIRST-HALF RESULTS 1 Sep: Team Internet

2 Sep: Everplay, Johnson Service Group, Michelmersh Brick Holdings, Oxford Nanopore Technologies, Uniphar

3 Sep: Cairn Homes, Churchill China

4 Sep: Alfa Financial Software, Funding Circle Grafton, International Publc Partnerships, Vistry, WAG Payment Solutions

TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS

3 Sep: Ashtead

4 Sep: Safestore Holdings

‹ Previous2025-08-28Next ›