Interview: Kevin Fitzgerald talks about REIC’s increased focus on specialty rental

REIC stands for Rental Equipment Investment Corp., and it’s a Miami-based holding company made up of acquired independent rental companies which still operate under their original brands. The business model was founded by Kevin Fitzgerald, who saw it as a way for smaller companies to benefit from the availability of corporate funding while holding onto the legacies they’ve built over decades.

The current business climate in equipment rental shows the big getting bigger, but there remains a place for independents. REIC offers itself as a hybrid of the two worlds, but also as a poster child for what an investment in specialty rental can do for cash flow and increased valuation.

To find out how it all works, we sat down with Kevin Fitzgerald, executive chairman of REIC, at The ARA Show in New Orleans last month. Here’s what he had to say about his company, where it’s headed, as well as the future of the industry.