Specialty truck manufacturer Oshkosh Truck Corp. has agreed to acquire Iowa Mold Tooling Inc. (IMT), the Garner, Iowa-based designer of field service vehicles-especially those with truck-mounted cranes-for $131 million.
Oshkosh Truck described IMT as the leading North American manufacturer of field service vehicles and said the deal supports its diversification strategy in the commercial specialty truck industry.
The companies expect to close the deal by Sept. 30.
``IMT is a bolt-on acquisition aligned with our long-held acquisition strategy and allows us to expand the products and services offered to the types of markets we understand very well,'' said Robert G. Bohn, Oshkosh chairman, president and CEO.
``...The opportunity to increase our product and service offering to construction customers and to enter new specialty markets with industry-leading products was an appealing aspect of this acquisition,'' Mr. Bohn said.
``We have an understanding of the market drivers in the construction industry through our McNeilus subsidiary, and IMT's other end markets have similar drivers.''
IMT's product range includes vehicles for the construction, mining, general mechanics, tire service and lubrication industries. All are designed to perform on-site service, maintenance or repair operations, Oshkosh said.
IMT was founded in 1961 in Garner as a business recutting and revamping molds for tire retreading. It soon branched off into the tire service truck business after developing an air compressor that mounted under the hood and operated off the engine.
By 1965 IMT was building completely self-contained tire service trucks and by the early 1970s was building a full line of hydraulic truck-mounted cranes and a complete line of lubrication and mechanics trucks.
IMT became a subsidiary of Ohio-based Sudbury Inc. in 1985, which in turn sold it to Intermet Corp. in 1997. Three years later it was acquired by American Capital Strategies Ltd.
IMT employs 375 at its facilities in Garner. Neither Oshkosh nor IMT disclosed IMT's annual sales.