Rush Enterprises Inc. announced that it signed a definitive asset purchase agreement to sell its John Deere construction equipment business, including its Rush Equipment Centers in Houston and Beaumont, Texas, to Doggett Heavy Machinery Services. The purchase price for the Rush Equipment Centers is estimated to be about $37 million for assets and goodwill. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter.
“With a tremendous group of employees to whom I am extremely grateful, we successfully operated our John Deere construction equipment dealer in Houston for over 12 years,” says W.M. “Rusty” Rush, president and chief executive officer of Rush Enterprises. “In the process, I believe that we proved that we can apply our organizational knowledge of serving commercial customers to distribute products other than commercial vehicles. We will continue to evaluate opportunities to re-enter the construction equipment dealership business in areas of the country outside of Houston and adjacent areas of southeast Texas, where we will be precluded from doing so for several years.”
