Nesco Finalizes Acquisition of Custom Truck One Source; Changes Name to CTOS
Nesco Holdings announced the closing of its previously announced acquisition of Custom Truck One Source in partnership with an affiliate of Platinum Equity LLC for $1.475 billion. Nesco and CTOS are both providers of specialized truck and heavy equipment solutions, including rental, sales and aftermarket parts and service. Nesco also announced it has changed its name to Custom Truck One Source.
The newly combined company is headquartered in Kansas City, Mo., and now led by CTOS co-founder and CEO Fred Ross. The combination creates a leading, one-stop-shop provider of specialty rental equipment, serving infrastructure end markets, including the transmission and distribution energy grid, the 5G revolution build-out and critical rail and other national infrastructure initiatives.
In connection with the acquisition, the company has changed its name to Custom Truck One Source Inc. Its shares of common stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol CTOS beginning on April 5, 2021, and its existing warrants will trade on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “CTOS.WS”. The company’s leadership team also includes Ryan McMonagle as president and chief operating officer and Brad Meader as chief financial officer, both of whom previously held those positions at CTOS.
“We are truly excited about bringing these two great companies together,” said Ross. “We believe that our stockholders will realize the benefits of the combination as we create one of the largest specialty rental fleets in the country. Moreover, we are excited to bring a larger platform to our customers and to continue to provide them with the outstanding customer service they have come to expect from both of us.”
In connection with the acquisition, Platinum has made an investment and became the majority stockholder of the company while existing CTOS equity holders, including certain funds managed by the Blackstone Group, the majority owner of CTOS prior to the acquisition, and certain members of the CTOS management team, became minority stockholders of the company. Energy Capital Partners and Capitol Investment, which together owned approximately 70 percent of Nesco’s outstanding common stock prior to the acquisition, retained their entire ownership positions in the company.
“We look forward to working with the management team to bring these companies together and to putting our playbook in action to create significant shareholder value for many years to come,” said Platinum Equity partner Louis Samson. “We have a lot of experience in this industry and are excited about the opportunities ahead.”
“We are thrilled to consummate this merger which creates a very unique, valuable, well-capitalized company that is a terrific business and now also will benefit from, and play an important role in, the likely large investment about to be made in our nation’s electrical, telecom and rail infrastructure,” said Mark Ein, Capitol’s CEO and Nesco’s vice-chairman who will join the CTOS board.
Nesco Specialty Rentals is No. 17 on the RER 100.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.