KCI Konecranes acquires the after-market operation assets of French harbour crane maker Caillard from Rolls-Royce Power Engineering Plc of Great Britain.
Through a number of recent actions KCI Konecranes has expanded its activities within maintenance services for material handling equipment in ports all around the globe.
The latest move is to acquire certain assets and trademarks of French crane maker Caillard S.A. of Le Havre, France. Caillard, who has built cranes since 1859, will under KCI Konecranes ownership concentrate on after-sales activities, including spares, modernisations, upgrades and maintenance for its world-wide installed base of more than 1000 cranes. Caillard will not build new cranes. Following KCI Konecranes strategy, Caillards services will also expand into covering other crane makes as well.
The company will at the Le Havre offices employ some 20 persons. "The long term employment within field services will be a multiple of this number", says Mr Mikko Uhari, President of Konecranes VLC Oy, KCI Konecranes' harbour crane operations.
Other recent moves by KCI Konecranes include the acquisition of the crane maintenance business of Noell Service und Maschinentechnik GmbH of Langenhagen and Hamburg, Germany in March, 2000. Under its new name Noell Konecranes this company is now positioned for spare parts, modernisations, upgrades and maintenance. Noell Konecranes also offers unique special competence in the capability of efficiently moving large cranes between locations. As major harbours upgrade their equipment for meeting shipping lines' demands for fast handling of ships with ever-increasing sizes, (semi-) old equipment increasingly find new users in smaller ports.
Noell Konecranes has recently won several major maintenance contracts including a two-year maintenance contract for 50 straddle carriers in Hamburger Hafen und Lagerhaus AG (HHLA), a modernisation project for a shipyard in Dakar, Senegal and a translocation job for EADS Airbus in Hamburg, where a storage hall with heavy load trailers will be moved to a new location.
KCI Konecranes intends to align its two new subsidiaries, Noell Konecranes and Caillard with its existing port service operations, especially those in Asia (headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), the Baltic Basin (managed from Hyvinkää, Finland) and the North American East Coast (headed from Houston, Texas).
KCI Konecranes port services will benefit from the Group's strong position as a world class producer of new harbour and shipyard cranes.
The Group's other maintenance services activities which focus on industrial cranes, with its presence at close to 300 locations world-wide and a 2500 strong crew, will also provide a backbone for the port service operations, in marketing, management and as a resources pool.
KCI Konecranes port services is organised as part of the Group's Harbour and Shipyard Crane organisation, and it will be reported under Maintenance Services in Group reports. For the current year total sales for Port Services is estimated to exceed EUR 60 million.
KCI Konecranes is one of the leading crane companies in the world and has the world's largest crane service organisation. The KCI Konecranes' activity is organised along three Business Areas: Maintenance Services, Standard Lifting Equipment and Special Cranes. In 1999, Maintenance Services represented 42 % of Group sales. Standard Lifting Equipment and Special Cranes, represented 34 % and 24 % respectively. In 1999, Group sales were EUR 591 million with well over 4000 employees in 34 countries all over the world.
For further information, please contact:
Markku Leinonen, Group Vice President,
KCI Konecranes International Plc., tel. +358-20 427 2002
