The New York Times published a lengthy report on 2.17.2025, “As Wall Street Chases Profits, Fire Departments Have Paid the Price – Fire engine manufacturing is now largely controlled by three companies. Around the country, prices have soared, and orders can take years to fulfill.”1
This story details the troubles fire departments across the country are experiencing maintaining older fire engines and buying new ones. It illustrates two strategies employed by the rich and corporations to transform American capitalism over the past fifty years: monopolization and financialization ( in this case, private equity(PE) firms).
Monopolization of Fire Trucks
“The fire engine industry was once made up of small, local manufacturers, many of whom built dozens or hundreds of trucks per year.”2 PE firms stepped in to buy up and consolidate the industry. “Together, the industry’s three largest companies — Rev Group, Oshkosh and Rosenbauer — control about 70 to 80 percent of the market.”3 This is the definition of a concentrated market – three or four companies controlling >50% of a market.
The Financialization of Fire Trucks – from production to extraction
PE firms execute strategies that extract as much money as possible as quickly as possible. They are not in business to produce goods and services, keep customers happy, or have a stable long-term workforce. These strategies move them from production to the extraction of money. To accomplish the drive to double the profits of these fire engine manufacturers, PE consolidated manufacturing operations. One firm, the Rev Group, reduced its manufacturing capacity by one-third in 2021. “Along the way, wait times soared. Before the pandemic, Rev Group had a backlog of roughly $1 billion worth of fire department orders that were expected to take a year to 18 months to fulfill. That has since jumped to $4 billion worth of orders that they estimate will take two to three years to deliver”.4 Where a typical manufacturer reinvests between 3% to 8% of revenue each year, the Rev Group held theirs to just 1%. “….Rev Group’s profit margins jumped to what they described as an “exceptional 8.9 percent” for the division that includes fire trucks in 2024. That same year, its longtime backer and owner, American Industrial Partners, sold nearly all of its shares, but before doing so awarded a special dividend of $180 million of which nearly $80 million went to A.I.P.”5
Learn more about financialization and PE
- What is financialization and why does it matter? – part 1 on Substack – first of a three-part series
- Financialization – from production to extraction on AmericanDelusions.com
- Brendan Ballou, Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America (New York: PublicAffairs, 2023).
Leave a Reply