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Did a Private Equity Fire Truck Roll-Up Worsen the L.A. Fires?
During the LA fires, dozens of fire trucks sat in the boneyard, waiting for repairs the city couldn't afford. Why? A private equity roll-up made replacing and repairing those trucks much pricier.
What is curious about that shutdown in particular is that it came in the face of rapidly increasing demand: As federal COVID-19 assistance filled state and local government coffers, fire truck orders grew approximately 50% from 2020 to 2022, reaching roughly 6,000 for the first time since 2008. Using that power, they have imposed years-long delays in delivery on their customers and exorbitant payment terms that will enable them to pass on production costs almost at will — leaving them little incentive to invest in new capacity or greater efficiency to relieve the bottleneck in the fire truck supply chain. State AGs can bring lawsuits to force REV Group to divest the manufacturers it illegally acquired and to pay damages to fire departments for the harm that its (attempted) monopolization of the fire-truck industry has caused.
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