Hyster-Yale Materials Handling has announced a €53.49M agreement to acquire Penta Holding SpA’s 50.4% stake in forklift truck attachment manufacturer Bolzoni SpA, which includes Bolzoni Auramo and Meyer (and Brudi). Penta is owned by the Bolzoni family, based in Piacenza, Italy.
The acquisition will be made through a wholly owned affiliate of Hyster-Yale, which has not yet been named. Such a vehicle may be necessary to establish an arm’s length relationship, so that Bolzoni Group can continue to trade credibly with all lift truck OEMs.
The announcement specifically states: “Bolzoni SpA… is expected to continue to operate as a standalone business, with its own management team and board of directors.”
Roberto Scotti, Bolzoni’s current CEO, is expected to stay on. He commented: “Today, Bolzoni provides attachments and components to forklift OEMs, their sales networks and customers, and ensures that integrity of information is maintained at all times. This core operating principle will not change as a result of this acquisition.
“This acquisition provides exciting opportunities for Bolzoni to expand its global reach while increasing its depth of penetration in certain markets. We also see tremendous opportunities to utilise our manufacturing capacity by insourcing components that Hyster-Yale currently purchases”.
The deal is subject to clearance by the German antitrust authority. If it proceeds (expected in Q2 2016), the Hyster-Yale affiliate will then launch a mandatory tender offer for all the outstanding shares (49.6%) in Bolzoni SpA
at an agreed price of €4.30 per share. Bolzoni has six manufacturing plants, in Italy, Germany, Finland, the US and China (two). It is the number one supplier in Europe, but has been expanding in North America and China.
With Cascade Corp having been acquired by Toyota Industries Corp three years ago, and now this deal, the world’s two biggest FLT attachments manufacturers are now owned by OEMs. Other leading lift truck OEMs, such as KION (Linde), Jungheinrich and Kalmar, may be wondering what this means for the sector.
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This complete item is approximately 300 words in length, and appeared in the February 2016 issue of WorldCargo News, on page 3. To access this issue download the PDF here.
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