Buying a hire business is buying a fleet that earns only when it is out, and wears out either way.

An equipment hire business is priced on what its fleet would sell for and on the earnings left after the fleet is kept young. IBISWorld’s industry-wide ratio of enterprise value to EBITDA is 2.5 times on the three-year average (August 2026), measured from company accounts rather than sale prices, and a listed scaffolding group agreed in mid-2026 to pay about $47.8 million for two businesses with about $12.8 million of combined EBITDA, about 3.7 times (our arithmetic on its August 2026 results presentation). An owner-run hirer offers a buyer less than scale: its earnings depend on the owner and its fleet may need renewing, and both belong in the price. Rebuild the earnings first. In our worked example, $900,000 of advertised EBITDA becomes $456,000 after a manager’s wage, unpaid admin, ex-hire sales, a finished project and the fleet renewal the vendor skipped. General information, not a valuation.

A plant or scaffolding hire business is valued two ways, and a good negotiation uses both. The first is a multiple of normalised earnings, which only works if the earnings are stated after a market wage for the owner and after the spending needed to keep the fleet’s age steady. The second is the fleet at market value, appraised machine by machine by a valuer who is not acting for the vendor, plus goodwill for the hire that will stay. Ask the valuer for orderly and forced liquidation values as well: the gap shows how specialised the fleet is and how much a lender will fund against it. Utilisation by category, the age profile, the spread of customers and the hire rates you can hold move the goodwill figure more than anything else.

Yes, an equipment hire business purchase is usually funded as three facilities that settle together rather than one loan. The fleet is funded as equipment finance against its appraised value, the rest of the price by a business loan sized on the cash flow left after the equipment repayments, and the debtor book by working capital or invoice finance; a yard, if you buy it, is a fourth loan against commercial property. In written positions in September and October 2026, one specialist business bank wanted about 30% of the price from the buyer on a standalone business purchase and tested debt-service cover of at least 1.25 times, and one non-bank offered equipment finance to $750,000 with no deposit up to $500,000 where no property is offered. The goodwill loan is usually where a deal falls short, so model it before you offer. Subject to lender assessment.

Plan on about 30% of the price plus working capital, then see what the fleet and any property you own change. One specialist business bank asked buyers to bring about 30% of the price to a standalone business purchase in September 2026. In our worked example, a $2.4 million business with a fleet appraised at $1.4 million needs about $707,000 from the buyer, 29.5% of the price, with 80% of the fleet funded as equipment and a goodwill loan sized at 1.25 times cover. On top of that, debtors at the industry’s 88 days on $3 million of revenue are about $723,000 to carry while collections catch up. Property you already own, offered as security, can reduce the cash you need. Subject to lender assessment.

Yes, you can own a scaffolding or crane hire business without a licence, and IBISWorld notes no specific legal requirement to operate an equipment rental business (August 2026). Licences belong to people: anyone erecting scaffolding needs a scaffolding licence at the right level, and dogging, rigging, crane and boom-type platform work each need their own high risk work licence. If the business erects scaffold or hires out plant with an operator, the licensed staff are the business, so make sure they stay, and that the owner is not the only licence holder. Lenders read experience as part of the security: one specialist bank asks for the buyer’s resume and evidence of industry experience before it makes an indicative offer (October 2026). Subject to lender assessment.

Check six things in a hire company’s fleet register, item by item. Age: larger operators aim for an average under five years (IBISWorld, August 2026). Utilisation: days on hire against days available, by category, and a year’s hire revenue against each item’s cost. Reinvestment: three years of capital spending against depreciation, because spending less runs the fleet down. Records: service, defect, inspection and registration history. Finance: what is owing on each item, matched to PPSR searches of the seller. Revenue quality: hire income separated from ex-hire sales and damage recovery. A register with serial numbers, year, hours, cost, written-down value and an appraised market value is also what an equipment lender sizes its facility on, so ask for it before the financials.

Yes, and mostly against the seller rather than the machines. On the Personal Property Securities Register only motor vehicles, aircraft, watercraft and some intellectual property are serial-numbered goods, and AFSA lists machinery and equipment among the goods that are not (checked 2 November 2026). So search the seller’s ACN, its ABN and every former name: each grantor search covers only the identifier you enter and costs $2 online. A security interest generally continues after a sale unless the secured party authorised it, and a business that holds machines to hire out may not get the protections the Act gives other buyers, so ask your lawyer. Make clear title, with a signed release from every financier, a condition of settlement.

A PPS lease is a hire long enough to be treated as a security interest under the Personal Property Securities Act. For hires entered into since 20 May 2017, that means a set term of more than two years, options included, or an open-ended hire once it passes two years (AFSA). A hire company that does not register its PPS leases is an unsecured creditor if the hirer becomes insolvent, so its machine can go to the hirer’s other creditors. When you buy a hire business, ask for the seller’s PPSR registrations against its customers, check them against the long hires in the books, and arrange for them to move to the buying entity. A long hire never registered is a finding: that machine is at risk.

Licences do not, and registrations depend on the kind. High risk work licences belong to the individuals who hold them, so the business keeps them only if the people stay. Design registration stays with the plant’s design. Item registration of plant such as tower cranes, mobile cranes over 10 tonnes and concrete placing booms has to be kept current by whoever manages or controls the plant, which from settlement is you, so ask the regulator in your state how each item moves and allow the time before it goes out on hire. In a share purchase the company keeps its registrations because its owner has not changed. Ask for every registration certificate with the fleet register, and treat registrable plant without one as a finding.

Your solicitor and accountant decide, and the trade-off is history against paperwork. In a share purchase the company keeps its plant registrations, its PPSR registrations against hirers and its customer contracts, but you inherit its past: incidents, claims, tax and disputes, and a contract with a change-of-control clause can still end or need consent. In an asset purchase most of that history stays with the vendor, but you search, re-register and re-paper everything, and the sale is GST-free as a going concern only if the ATO’s conditions are met, including a written agreement and the vendor carrying on the business until the day of sale. Depreciation also works differently in each, which changes the after-tax cash flow you are buying. We arrange the funding for either.

Perhaps not for the fleet itself, and your accountant decides. The ATO lists a $20,000 instant asset write-off limit for small businesses with aggregated turnover under $10 million, for assets first used or installed from 1 July 2023, with no end date shown (ATO, August 2026); dearer assets go into the small business pool. But the small business depreciation rules exclude assets leased out, or expected to be leased out, for more than 50% of the time on a depreciating asset lease (ATO, May 2026). Whether a fleet on short hires falls inside that exclusion, and how depreciation applies to a share or an asset purchase, is advice to get before the deduction goes into your forecast.

For the business you are buying: three years of financials and tax returns with the add-backs itemised; twelve months of bank statements and the tax portal; the fleet register with serial numbers, year, hours, cost, finance owing and an appraisal on market and liquidation bases; utilisation and hire revenue by category; the top customers with their share of revenue and terms; the yard lease or title; registration, inspection and maintenance records; and the insurance schedule with its claims history. For you: a statement of position, two years of tax returns, the deposit and its source, a resume showing your hire, construction or operating experience, and a twelve-month plan. A complete pack is read once; a partial one is read twice. Subject to lender assessment.

Yes, older or used equipment can be financed in a business purchase, within each lender’s limits on an asset’s age at the start and at the end of the term. An older machine can mean a shorter term, a smaller balloon or none, or a lower share of its value funded. What the lender sizes against is an appraisal of each item at market and in liquidation, not the vendor’s written-down value, so order the appraisal early. Where the fleet is old, put the replacement plan into the price and into the forecast: machines due for renewal inside the loan term are a capital bill you are buying, and the rebuild on this page shows what they do to the loan the cash flow supports. Subject to lender assessment.

Sometimes, if the arrangement is in writing with the business and survives the sale. IBISWorld says hirers chase long-term arrangements with major contractors, which steady utilisation, while customers on short hires of small machinery can switch suppliers at little cost (August 2026). Ask who the arrangement is with, its term and notice, whether it can be assigned or has a change-of-control clause, when the rates were last reviewed, and what share of revenue it carries. Above about a third of revenue, meet the contractor before you commit and make settlement conditional on the arrangement continuing. Then price the dependence: if the contract ends, the fleet that served it has to find new work or be sold.

The way the industry’s larger players have: by buying hirers in new regions or product lines. Kennards bought Solution Plant Hire in March 2026 to win infrastructure work in New South Wales, Master Hire bought East Side Hire in Warwick, Queensland, in 2025, and Acrow bought two businesses in mid-2026 (IBISWorld; Acrow). For an operator who already owns a hire business, the purchase is funded on the combined cash flow, your track record is the experience a lender wants to see, and an equipment lender may refinance the target’s fleet alongside yours. Check that the yards, rate cards and hire terms can be merged, and that the target’s key staff and customers stay. Run the rebuild on this page on the combined numbers first. Subject to lender assessment.