Sunbelt buys White’s film rental business

As Ontario’s Hollywood film boom grows, The Ashtead Group has acquired William F. White International, Canada’s biggest film, TV and digital production equipment rental business.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the U.K.-based equipment rental giant, which drives most of its revenues from its North Carolina-headquartered Sunbelt division, is entering the related film production equipment rental business as deep-pocketed Hollywood streamers and studios aggressively lock up studio space, talent and crews in and around Toronto.

Ashtead is also using the Whites acquisition to diversify away from the UK market, where the low value of the British pound and Brexit is weighing on the construction industry and is getting into the rental of specialist film production equipment. | READ MORE