Investors seem ready to hear a familiar story from tool hire specialist Ashtead: a collapse in industrial demand, slashed rental rates and a rapid fall in earnings. But rehashing the narrative that unfolded after the 2008 financial crisis would be simplistic.
A rapid descent this year has left shares in the tool hire company priced at a meagre 12 times forward earnings. For context, that’s far behind a post-referendum average multiple of 17, and roughly at the same level as the weeks immediately after the first UK lockdown and Brexit referendum, when doomsday scenarios similarly took hold.
The risk of recession in the group’s core US market has trumped bullish guidance. Guidance for a stateside rise in rental revenue of between 13 and 16 per
