Batavia rental company
acquires Canadian firm

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After buying a Canadian company last month, a Batavia businessman says he plans to move into the northern market cautiously.
Jerry Reinhart, president of the Batavia-based Access Rentals Inc., said he had not planned to expand into Canada. But then an opportunity arose that looked too good to pass up.
Access and UpRight Inc. of Selma, Calif., inked a deal last month in which Access bought UpRight’s Canadian sales and rental operation, UpRight Canada Inc. of North York, Ontario.
Reinhart said Access acquired all of the Canadian firm’s stock, but he declined to state other terms.
While the February purchase is not Access’ first Canadian connection, it marks its first venture into the Canadian market, Reinhart said.
Reinhart started the firm in 1975 with a Canadian equipment dealer–his former boss–as a partner, but bought his employer out in 1981.
Access is primarily a rental operation. It specializes in aerial lift platforms, truck-mounted cranes and rough-terrain forklifts.
At its founding, Access was a four-worker, four-machine operation. It since has grown steadily, increasing sales by some 15 percent a year, Reinhart said.
The company now is a $23 million, multistate concern with seven offices in four states. Last year, Reinhart said, a trade publication ranked Access the 32nd-largest construction-equipment-rental firm in the United States.
He attributes the company’s success to its early focus on lift equipment. By specializing, Reinhart said, the firm made a name for itself as a lift-equipment expert and thus drew business.
Access opened its first branch offices in Syracuse and Spring Hill, Tenn., in 1987. A New York City-area office and one in Bloomington, Ind., followed in 1989. Bayshore, Long Island, and Franklin, Ind., branches opened in 1993.
In all, the firm’s U.S. employees total 100, with 40 at its Batavia headquarters and seven on permanent assignment at Kodak Park to maintain equipment on lease to Eastman Kodak Co.
Other Rochester-area equipment-leasing customers are ITT Automotive Electrical Systems North America and Xerox Corp., Reinhart said.
The seller, UpRight, is a $100 million lift-equipment manufacturer headquartered in Selma, Calif. It sold its $3 million Toronto-area firm as part of an effort to focus on its core manufacturing business, said UpRight spokeswoman Megan Sammons.
The sale follows the closing of a Canadian manufacturing plant whose operations were consolidated with UpRight’s California facilities three years ago, and the subsequent sale of UpRight’s European retail operations, she said.
Sammons said UpRight pitched the sale to Reinhart last year because Access has one of the highest-volume sales records of its 200 authorized U.S. equipment dealers.
Although it lost the top spot last year, the Batavia firm had outsold all others in 1992 and 1993, she said.
Roughly 40 percent of UpRight Canada’s business is in equipment sales, with 60 percent in rentals. That compares to a 20 percent equipment-sales and 80 percent rental breakdown for Access revenues.
Reinhart said he plans to expand UpRight Canada’s rental business in Ontario but is unsure what efforts he will make to develop it in other provinces.
“We’re really just feeling things out,” he said.
In part, Reinhart said, his caution stems from unfamiliarity with Canadian regulations. Canadian safety and health rules, for example, are tougher than U.S. laws. Learning them will be challenging, he said.
But deeper questions, such as how much to mesh Canadian and American firms and how to proceed in the Canadian market, also concern Reinhart.
Should UpRight Canada’s rental business be brought into line as a percentage of sales with Access’, or should it continue on its present course? To what extent, if any, can the Canadian and American firms share business?
“Those are questions I’m still struggling with,” he said.
Add to those puzzlements the question of the Canadian dollar, currently worth roughly 70 cents in U.S. money.
“The difference sure worked to our advantage when we bought the company. Now I’m not sure how it affects us,” Reinhart said.
Despite Reinhart’s resolve to tread gingerly, UpRight believes the Batavia firm will prosper north of the border, Sammons said.