14.04.2023

New CEO for Circle 8 crane

US rental company Circle 8 Crane Service of Texas has appointed Arnold Mabee as its new chief executive. He takes over from co-founder and previous owner Phillip Bryson, who remains on board as president while his brother Allen is chief financial officer. The move follows the November acquisition of Circle 8 by Ault Alliance.

Mabee joins the company from Sterling Crane where he has been president since the start of 2019. He has spent most of his career in the crane business, starting out in 1996 as an operations manager with Webb Crane Service in Colorado. After six and a half years with the company he moved to Ridge Crane & Rigging as a branch manager, leaving for his first spell with Sterling a year or so later. In 2005 he worked with RS Steel, returning to Sterling in 2008 as general manager of Sterling Crane USA.
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Arnold Mabee

Circle 8 Crane was established in 2007 by Phillip and Allen Bryson, the company runs a fleet of Grove truck and All Terrain cranes topped by a 450 tonne seven axle unit and operates from five locations – four in Texas and one in Oklahoma.

Ault Alliance acquired Circle 8 in a $40 million asset purchase deal last November, in partnership with specialist private equity group, Paramount Lifting Solutions which took a 20 percent stake, while Phillip and Allen Bryson retain 16 percent of the shares, leaving Ault with 64 percent. The deal was funded with $16 million in cash, while the business takes on around $24 million of asset based debt.
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Mabee said: “Circle 8 is a great company with enormous potential, and I am excited to join the team and look forward to driving the business forward to its full potential alongside the Brysons.”

Phillip Bryson added: “We are very excited to have Arnold join the Circle 8 team, bringing a wealth of experience and network to the company. Arnold will be able to leverage the solid foundation that we have built at Circle 8 to grow our fleet and personnel , as well as to serve and expand our customer base. This is a very constructive step towards taking Circle 8 to the next level, and with his operational background he fits in well with the team.

Chris Wu, an executive vice president of Ault Alliance who also sits on the Circle 8 board said: "Arnold joining our team is a testament to the strength of the platform and the opportunity to build a world class lifting services business. Together in partnership with Phillip Bryson, we believe that we have the key ingredients for success.“

Las Vegas based Ault Alliance, a subsidiary of BitNile, seeks out undervalued businesses, through its wholly and majority owned subsidiaries and strategic investments, Its portfolio includes a data centre at which it mines Bitcoin, while also providing products that support a diverse range of industries, including metaverse platform, oil exploration, defence/aerospace, industrial and automotive industries and several others.