Platinum Equity has signed a definitive agreement to acquire a majority stake in Trime, an Italian manufacturer of mobile lighting towers, generators and security towers, the firm announced on Monday. Founder and chairman Andrea Fontanella, chief executive Paolo Tacconi and other managers will reinvest alongside Platinum. Financial terms were not disclosed, and completion is expected by early 2027 subject to customary conditions and regulatory approvals.
Trime sells the temporary power and lighting equipment that construction, rental fleets, events and industrial sites run on, including battery swappable lighting towers. Platinum’s stated plan is internationalisation, above all in the United States: investment in production capacity, sales coverage, warehousing and spare parts availability, with acquisitions as part of the programme.
Co-president Louis Samson framed the thesis in infrastructure terms, calling Trime a resilient, cash generative business serving markets benefiting from essential infrastructure spending, with additional upside from continued investment in data centres and power generation in the US and globally. Platinum has held equipment and rental businesses for two decades, including BlueLine Rental, which it sold to United Rentals for 2.1 billion dollars, and current holdings Custom Truck One Source and Electro Rent.
The structure is a partnership buyout rather than a clean exit: the founder keeps equity and the business, so Platinum is underwriting an expansion plan it does not fully control on day one, and the undisclosed price means the market cannot yet judge whether Italian mid market equipment multiples are holding at last year’s levels.