Manitowoc Crane Group, Sturgeon Bay, Wis., has agreed to purchase Marine Travelift Inc.'s Shuttlelift Carrydeck line of industrial cranes. Manitowoc Crane Group and Marine Travelift executives said the move is beneficial for both companies.
Manitowoc's industrial crane product line is sold under the name YardBoss, which is a Grove brand. The YardBoss product line has been manufactured by Shuttlelift under a supply agreement for the last two years. Over this same time period, the two companies have continued to offer their industrial cranes simultaneously to customers in this market.
"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."
As a result of this acquisition, Manitowoc will improve its position as an industry leader in the industrial crane market as well as further enhance its position as a leader in the mobile crane market by offering a more complete product range. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Manitowoc Crane Group intends to continue selling the Shuttlelift Carrydeck crane line 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 is selling the Carrydeck line as a move to further strengthen the company. They continue to experience significant growth in their rubber-tired gantry crane business, as well as in their Marine Travelift mobile boat hoist product line.
"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," says Stephan Pfeifer, CEO 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.
