Milwaukee-based specialty vehicle maker REV Group Inc. has acquired Lancaster, California-based towable RV manufacturer Lance Camper Manufacturing Corp. The acquisition closed Jan. 12 for an undisclosed price.
Lance Camper was founded in 1965. It designs, engineers and manufactures a line of towable campers, including the top-selling truck camper in the U.S. It has more than 550 employees and about $100 million in annual revenue.
REV Group designs, manufactures and distributes specialty vehicles, as well as aftermarket parts and services, for the fire and emergency, commercial and recreation markets. Among its vehicles are ambulances, school buses, municipal transit buses, street sweepers, RVs and luxury buses. Its 2017 revenue was about $2.3 billion.
The acquisition allows REV Group to “meaningfully enter” the $10 billion RV towables segment, according to the company. In the integration, founders Jack Cole and Jeff Souleles will continue to lead Lance Camper.
“We’re thrilled to be joining REV’s iconic family of brands,” said Cole, president of Lance Camper. “We look forward to leveraging REV’s scale and footprint in the RV industry to rapidly expand our distribution and further accelerate our growth. We’re an excellent fit given REV’s strong commitment to providing its dealers and customers with premium quality, brand leadership and continuous innovation, all of which align well with our culture and ambition.”
REV Group makes 28 brands of specialty vehicles at 15 locations, many of which are in the Midwest. The company has more than 6,000 employees. Tim Sullivan, former chief executive officer of South Milwaukee-based Bucyrus International Inc., has served as CEO of Rev Group since 2014. The company moved its headquarters to Milwaukee in 2016, and went public in January 2017.
The company has made several acquisitions in recent months. It acquired Midwest Automotive Designs LLC and Ferrara Fire and Apparatus in 2017, and Renegade RV in 2016.
“We are absolutely delighted to welcome Jack, Jeff and the entire Lance Camper team into the REV family,” said Tim Sullivan, chief executive officer of REV Group. “This acquisition is well-aligned across all of our acquisition criteria. Lance Camper adds one of the highest quality towable lines in the U.S. and provides a significant new avenue of growth in our RV segment.”
