Ashtead Group’s Sunbelt Rentals acquires RentalMax

Sunbelt Rentals has acquired RentalMax, an equipment rental provider with 10 locations including eight in the Chicago area, plus Hobart, Ind., and Madison, Wis. RentalMax was founded in 1997 by Terry Hagy. Sunbelt Rentals has more than 1200 locations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom. Ashtead Group, a publicly traded U.K. company,  acquired Sunbelt in 1990, has acquired several other rental companies in North America since then. RentalMax said that all its stores will continue to operate in their respective locations.

“I want to express appreciation to the RentalMax team for everything that they’ve done, especially in my time over the past six years, to build and grow the company,” said John Jeanguenat, president, RentalMax, who will remain with the company in a consultant role. “What we’ve accomplished, we’ve accomplished together and everybody plays a key role in that.”

“I also want to give credit to Sunbelt, especially their local leadership and management that covers the Chicagoland area, for identifying RentalMax — our operation, our people and the customers we serve — as an opportunity to complement what Sunbelt is already doing in this market,” he said. “They see a lot of value in our stores and definitely our people and the level of experience and reputation that RentalMax has in the Chicagoland market and in Madison as well.”

“A lot of the decisions are still going to be made at the local level,” said Jeanguenat. “We have an infrastructure with our team that’s going to transition into Sunbelt, so we’re going to continue to operate in a very similar way to how we have operated but with a whole other level of resources behind us. This is also an opportunity for us to show that what we’ve been doing can be successful and complement what Sunbelt is doing, and maybe be a model for how they continue to grow in the U.S. and Canada going forward.”