Manitowoc Crane Group, Sturgeon Bay, Wis., has agreed to purchase the Shuttlelift Carrydeck line of industrial cranes from Marine Travelift Inc. As a result of this acquisition, MCG hopes to improve its position in the industrial crane market by offering a more complete product range. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“This agreement will benefit the customers of both Shuttlelift's Carrydeck products and Grove's YardBoss industrial cranes as the two leaders in this market come together,” said John Wheeler, executive vice president for Manitowoc Crane Group Americas. “Carrydeck customers will benefit from Grove's 60 years of mobile crane innovation and Manitowoc Crane Group will benefit from Shuttlelift's expertise in the industrial crane market.”
Currently, MCG's industrial crane product line is sold under the name YardBoss, which is a Grove brand, but has been manufactured by Shuttlelift under a supply agreement for the last two years. During this same period, the two companies have continued to offer their industrial cranes simultaneously to customers in this market.
MCG intends to continue selling the Shuttlelift Carrydeck crane lines through its existing dealers, while also selling its YardBoss cranes line through the Grove dealer network, said Dave Birkhauser, senior vice president, sales for MCG's Americas region.
“We'll continue serving both dealer organizations as we are now. It should be a seamless transition,” Birkhauser said. “As both organizations have historically focused on different aspects within the industrial crane market, we foresee little change,” he said. “Because bringing together the two market leaders in the industrial cranes will ultimately make us a much stronger organization, we see a bright future for our products and our customers.”
Marine Travelift's decision to sell the Carrydeck line is a move to strengthen the company. “We realized that our gantry business could be much larger in both the industrial markets and marine markets than the Carrydeck business ever could be, so we made a shift to dedicate our internal resources to grow the business we felt would take us further,” said Stephan Pfeifer, chief executive officer of Shuttlelift and Marine Travelift.
Marine Travelift has agreed to continue manufacturing the Carrydeck and YardBoss cranes through the end of 2007 under a mutually beneficial arrangement. Manitowoc Crane Group will assume responsibility for manufacturing the product beginning in 2008.
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