Able Equipment Taking Over Sam’s-U-Rent
Able Equipment Rental, which caters to the construction and entertainment industries, said Monday that it will take over family-owned Sam’s-U-Rent in Van Nuys.
The terms of the transaction between the two privately owned companies were not released.
The merged company will be headed by Jeff Butler, president of Buena Park-based Able, which mainly supplies telescoping platforms. No name changes are planned at any of seven rental lots in Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties, company officials said Monday.
Sam’s-U-Rent, which focuses on rentals of vehicles, trailers and construction equipment to homeowners and small contractors, was founded in 1935 by Sam Greenberg, the son of a Russian immigrant who set up a blacksmith shop in the San Fernando Valley a generation earlier.
Greenberg, who died in 1991, was a well-known Valley businessman, philanthropist and political figure who bankrolled political campaigns and served on Los Angeles city commissions.
His son, Steve Greenberg, the company’s president, said that he will become a consultant to the new company.
Greenberg said that he and other family members received an unspecified amount of cash for the company but remain owners of three rental locations in Van Nuys, West Hollywood and West Los Angeles. The other rental locations for the combined business are in Buena Park, Mira Loma, Riverside and Santa Fe Springs.
Greenberg, who has lived in Phoenix for several years, said that the complementary business lines and locations made Able a natural fit with Sam’s. There will be only a few layoffs among 85 Sam’s employees, he said.
Able wanted to enter the specialty field of consumer rentals, a direction its Riverside store already has taken, Greenberg said.
“The business is like a lot of others these days,” Greenberg said. “If you aren’t expanding, you’re going to wither.”
Both companies also have a history of charitable work, including support for Habitat for Humanity, a tradition that is expected to continue, he said.
