Consolidated Equipment Companies (CEC), the company set up by venture capitalists last year

to buy Con-Equip, has acquired Owsley & Sons and Reco Industries. Like Con-Equip, which was bought in May 1999, the new acquisitions are Link-Belt distributors.

With sales of $150m, CEC now lays claim to being a leading construction equipment distributor and rental provider – and the largest Link-Belt crane dealer in the world.

CEC also acts for crane manufacturers Mannesmann Dematic, National Crane, and Manitex, as well as earthmoving and scrap handling equipment manufacturers such as LBX, Hyundai, Moxy, Hamm, Atlas ERS, Barko and Kohler Company. The Demag, National and Manitex business comes from Owsley, the biggest of the three companies that CEC has now acquired

Owsley & Son has locations in North and South Carolina and Georgia, while Reco is based in Louisiana. Con-Equip is in Texas. Con-Equip and Owsley are both rated by Link-Belt as among its top five distributors.

CEC said that its territories represented some of the fastest growing, highest equipment-consuming markets in the country, comprising an estimated 35% of crane sales and 20% of all new equipment sales in the USA. The company added that the latest acquisitions were consistent with CEC’s strategy of seeking growth through acquisition. The company is also looking to move further into the rental business. “A lot of our growth strategy revolves around growing the rental business,” chief financial officer Andy Foskey told Cranes Today.

He described CEC’s strategy: “CEC’s business model, internally called ‘rental plus’, is essentially a hybrid operating model between the typical equipment distribution business, primarily selling and servicing new and used equipment, and the ‘rent to rent’ company primarily providing equipment rentals. CEC’s operating model seeks to maximise both equipment sales and service, and rentals, providing customers with a one-stop solution for their construction equipment needs. CEC focuses on crane and earthmoving equipment products and services in all of its locations.”

Both Owsley and Reco were privately owned. Foskey said that Reed Owsley, one of the former owners, was staying with the company as a condition of sale. Reco’s former owner has retired.

CEC is headed by Mitch Nevins and was formed in May 1999 through the acquisition of Con-Equip and Con-Equipment by a group of private equity investors comprising the Texas Growth Fund, Sanders Morris Mundy and Heller Equity Capital Corporation.

It now has locations in: Fort Mill, SC; Greensboro, NC; Atlanta, GA; Houston, TX; Dallas, TX; San Antonio, TX; New Orleans, LA; Baton Rouge, LA; Lake Charles, LA; and Lafayette, LA.