Seeking Alpha: Is Now The Time For Essex Rental?

The past year has been a pretty good one for the shares of at least some companies leveraged to commercial construction activity. The crane companies (Terex (NYSE:TEX), Manitowoc (NYSE:MTW), and Manitex (NASDAQ:MNTX)) had a rough time in the wake of second quarter results, they're up 27% to 42% over the past year. United Rentals (NYSE:URI) and Hertz (NYSE:HTZ), both of which rent various types of equipment to the construction industry, have also joined in, climbing over 100% and almost 20%, respectively.

Then there is Essex Rental (NASDAQ:ESSX). One of the largest owners and renters of crawler cranes in the United States, these shares are down almost 40% as the company continues to languish with weak utilization of traditional crawlers and uninspiring revenue and EBITDA performance. It seems to be getting better, though, as the company is implementing a new customer-centric strategy, expanding some of its offerings, and seeing improving utilization and order inquiries. Add in pretty positive recent trends in non-residential construction indexes and maybe this marks a potential turnaround point.

Before going further into the details, it is important to note that Essex is tiny (a sub-$100 million market cap) and not very liquid (an average volume of less than 50K shares/day). That increases the risk and makes it less likely that Essex Rental will gain the attention and support of sell-side analysts.

Continue here:
Is Now The Time For Essex Rental?