NationsRent buys Rental City’s 3 stores

BOULDER – Three Rental City stores in Boulder, Broomfield and Longmont – a business founded in Boulder by Jim Ziegler– have been sold to NationsRent Inc., a fast-growing, publicly held construction equipment rental company.Neither Rental City nor Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based NationsRent (NYSE, NRI) executives disclosed the total price tag of the deal.
“We found it harder to keep up with the industry,” said Ziegler, who will remain with NationsRent as regional manager. “For instance, they (NationsRent) will put a couple million dollars worth of new equipment in each store. This move will increase our market share and increase our customers.”
Though NationsRent bought all of Ziegler’s Rental City franchises, he still owns the property and dirt under the buildings. “They don’t buy dirt,” Ziegler said.
A large plaque on the wall of Ziegler’s corner office professes that he is the University of Colorado Buffalo’s No. 1 fan. And he may be – Ziegler started his equipment rental business in 1969 and has been in Boulder, watching plenty of college football, ever since.
Although he will be busy guiding the transition, the entrepreneurial Ziegler is looking at new ventures himself. He recently bought Superior Liquor, which is being built into the soon-to-be-completed Superior Plaza – a new building seen easily from U.S. 36. Superior Plaza builders are constructing the 56,000-square-foot building’s outer shell.
The move to acquire all Rental City stores, with plans to build at least four more in the Denver metro area, plays only a small part in NationsRent’s nationwide expansion project. Only two years old, NationsRent operates more than 170 stores in 26 states and will open 20 to 25 locations in 2000. In 1998, the company had revenues of $236 million.
“We are not necessarily going into every state,´ said NationsRent Vice President of Sales and Marketing Gary Stuart. “We look for high construction activity, and the Denver/Boulder area has a lot of construction activity.”
Stuart said the acquisition of Ziegler’s Rental City stores gives the company access to a diverse customer base, and he hopes to be the area’s one-stop-shop for equipment rental.
The deal means big changes for Rental City.
Floors will be ripped up, the building will be renovated, labels will be changed and a portion of Rental City will be sold away, as part of NationsRent’s 100-day integration process that “brings a retail feel to the rental business.”
Eight of Rental City’s 58 employees who work in the special-events division will lose their jobs. Rental City’s other employees will remain with the new structure so important customer relationships in the community are not lost, Stuart said.
“The vast majority of cases keep the management,” Stuart said. “They have established business relationships over long periods of time.”
Traditionally, Rental City carried items such as podiums, wedding arches and sound system equipment, but those products “do not fit the NationsRent profile,” Ziegler said.
He added that the plans to sell the special-events division were drafted before NationsRent bought the company.
The profile of a NationsRent store alters the sometimes crowded equipment yard into an attractive, automobile dealership showroom. Equipment is displayed on a sales floor, and larger equipment is arranged outdoors.
NationsRent also designated the Broomfield Rental City as the “hub” store. This store will carry all equipment plus the larger bulldozers and dump trucks. The hub concept allows customers – who work primarily in commercial construction — easy access to large equipment not carried at all metro area NationsRent stores.
A typical commercial or city construction project uses about 15 percent rented equipment, Ziegler said.