Coates grows and plans ‘solutions’ division

Despite being impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and bushfires, Australian rental company Coates Hire achieved growth in both its revenues and profits for the year to 30 June, and has continued to invest in its fleet.

The business also plans to launch Coates Solutions in the current financial year, to focus on custom-designed products.

Full-year revenues were up 2% to AU974.7 million and underlying EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) grew by 1% to UA$203.7 million.

Coates made a net capital investment of AU$225 million to refresh and grow its rental fleet during the year.

Coates said the services it offers have increasingly come to include custom-designed solutions for specialist product areas such as shoring, propping, traffic, events and wastewater management.

As a result, in financial year 2021 the company plans to launch Coates Solutions to “further showcase and highlight our ability to offer complete end-to-end solutions across engineering and industrial services”.

On its financial results, Coates owner, Seven Group Holdings, said, “The Australian bushfire crisis directly impacted our operations across NSW [New South Wales] and Victoria, and our teams worked tirelessly in many communities to provide equipment, facilities and volunteer support during their greatest time of need.”

With regard to the pandemic, it added, “Coates Hire’s general hire operations were impacted, with cancellation of events and delays in commencement of new residential and non-residential building projects. However, this was offset by strength in the majority of market segments.”

Coates continued to operate at the peak of the crisis as an essential service. During the pandemic, it has been supporting major infrastructure and mining projects such as Western Sydney Airport, Snowy Hydro 2.0 and the Sydney Metro in New South Wales.

Coates transitioned to a new way of working in which office employees worked from home and operational employees continued to service customers while observing social distancing and hygiene measures.