Coates Hire Limited is Australia’s largest hire equipment company, this year celebrating 120 years in industry. The general equipment hire market in Australia in which Coates operates, generates approximately $3 billion annually in hire sales and Coates from July 2005 has an estimated 20% share through its general and specialised business units – Coates Hire, Coates Prestige, Coates Shorco, Coates Conrent and Allied Equipment. Our overseas businesses include Coates Offshore, operating out of Aberdeen and supplying the specialist oil and gas market globally and Coates Hire Indonesia, whose branch locations supply the growing mining resources and offshore sectors across Indonesia.

We have defined our purpose as ‘the provision of Hire solutions that will build a better future for all’ and believe that by pursuing this purpose and living our values of relentless customer focus, working together, ownership and continuous improvement we will rapidly achieve and exceed our goal of becoming ‘the $1billion hire company of first choice for customers, employees, shareholders and suppliers’.

To achieve that goal we have identified a series of critical success factors that define who we are and drive our strategy:

// Commit to our Customers

Coates has historically strong customer relationships and now regularly services in excess of 17,000 account customers every month through our network of over 180 branches. The customers we service are typically from the Engineering, Civil Construction and Maintenance, Mining and Resources, Manufacturing, Government, Industrial Shutdowns and Events sectors. We recognise that our customers value doing business with a company that provides prompt and responsive service, has reliable equipment, employs industry professionals, is easy to do business with and provides solutions – not just products.

// Develop our People

In a business that manages over 800,000 assets you could be forgiven for thinking that it’s all about the equipment. In truth our staff of over 2,000 are the key to our success. It is interesting to note that with Coates equal commitment to youth, through our apprenticeship program, and to experience, through our support for mature age workers, we have a corporate population that reflects the diversity of the markets in which we operate. We are continuing to nurture and strengthen our workforce through programs such as the Leadership Development Program (LDP) and Management Development Program (MDP) which are providing the framework for even better experiences for our customers.

// Manage our Fleet

Coates leverages its core competency of superior asset management to drive value for customers and shareholders. Coates provides a comprehensive range of equipment, from the smallest electric hand tools to massive earthmovers and dump trucks for the mining industry. We believe we can manage assets throughout their life cycle (acquisition, maintenance, utilisation and disposal) better than anyone else and therefore we can create value for our customers. As market leader our size gives us the opportunity to drive economies of scale and our ‘Silver Service’ maintenance program ensures that our equipment always passes the reliability test.

// Grow our Company

Coates’ ability to meet the needs of its customers has ensured a healthy organic growth which, in recent years, has been helped by a strong cyclical upswing. At the same time Coates has used its strong balance sheet to strategically invest for growth and protect the Company against contraction. Coates has pursued the strategy of ‘sweep & plug’ acquisitions to fill geographical holes in our general equipment business. We have also implemented ‘Project Extension’ which has boosted investment in new product lines such as tele-handlers, forklifts, lift & shift and propping that leverage our existing infrastructure and increase our share of customer spending.

Finally, we have reshaped our revenue profile to reduce our exposure to the broad construction cycle through step out acquisitions such as Allied Equipment. This focus on growth has seen us increase hire sales from approximately $100 million when we listed in 1996 to over $500 million today.

Coates is a strong, ethical and involved Australian company that is committed to building relationships with the broader community within which we operate. We are a proud sponsor of the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games, the Australian Commonwealth Games Team and the Children’s Cancer Institute of Australia. For more details visit www.coates.com.au.