United Rentals Inc reports a profit of USD75 million on 2012 sales of USD4.12 billion. The results include eight months of the contributions of RSC Holdings Inc, which United acquired on 30 April.

"There's a lot to be excited about from the standpoint of value creation as we look at 2013," says Michael Kneeland, chief executive officer. "Industrial and other non-construction sectors have balanced our mix and now account for about 50% of our business. We also expect to benefit further from the secular shift to rental."

He adds that non-residential construction "is predicted to show reasonable improvement, with larger upswings in 2014 and 2015. We see opportunities to continue to grow our key accounts, reap the synergies of the merger and expand our fleet, while further lowering our debt leverage."

"(United's) integration with RSC has been very successful, and while it's not complete, we can now shift our focus to driving improvements across the entire business," Kneeland says. "Despite the intensity of integration, we've paid consistent attention to the fundamentals of our business and made good on our promise to drive significant returns."

Greenwich-based United characterises itself as "the largest equipment rental company in the world". United has an integrated network of 836 rental locations in 49 US states and 10 Canadian provinces and, as of 31 December, a fleet of approximately 400,000 rental units. The 3,300 classes of equipment include 41 types of aerial work platforms, 10 kinds of variable reach forklifts, six models of warehouse forklifts, two styles of rough terrain forklifts and one type of hydraulic pallet jack.