TNT Crane & Rigging has acquired Southway Crane & Rigging Companies, headquartered in Macon, Ga. Southway is a full-service mobile crane provider with eight branches serving the Southeast United States including Georgia, South Carolina, Northern Florida and Tennessee. With the addition of Southway, TNT has expanded its geographic operations from primarily Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma to a company that now extends from west Texas to the Atlantic seaboard.
TNT now owns about 380 cranes and provides full-service capabilities utilizing its portfolio of truck-mounted, all-terrain, rough terrain, crawlers, mobile gantries and rigging solutions with lifting capabilities ranging from three tons up to 1,330 tons. With the acquisition, TNT has diversified its client base with Southway’s strong presence in the power, pulp and paper, telecom and mining businesses. TNT participates in these and other verticals including refining, petrochemical, oil and gas, wind, general commercial construction, and others.
“We are extremely excited to bring together two of the best crane companies in the business,” said Michael Appling Jr., president and CEO of TNT. “This combination puts us in a stronger and more competitive position from numerous perspectives. We will achieve greater industry and geographic diversification, which greatly mitigates our overall business and concentration risk. Our combined fleets and capabilities, strong customer relationships and deep operational experience provide an excellent runway for strategic growth through maximizing utilization, penetrating new contiguous markets and taking advantage of pull through customer relationships in new geographies. Both TNT and Southway work hard to be industry leaders in safety and operational excellence and this combination can only strengthen our reputation and market position.”
“Southway has an impressive management team and their approach to growing the business is perfectly aligned with our strategy,” said TNT’s chief development officer Kregg Lunsford. “We are thrilled to join forces with Jerry Reynolds, Greg Fussell, James Simons, Guy Lopez and the entire Southway team.”
Reynolds, founder and majority shareholder of Southway, will join TNT as executive vice president running the Southeast region and will continue as president of the Southway companies.
TNT is a leading crane and rigging services provider and a portfolio company of Odyssey Investment Partners. VRA Partners served as an exclusive financial advisor to Southway in this transaction.
TNT has been active in acquisitions, having purchased 60 cranes and four branches of Turner Bros. Crane in 2012, as well as the South Texas crane assets of Louisiana Crane Co. in 2011.
