Convoi sells to Mammoet

International heavy lift and transport specialist Mammoet will acquire the lifting and maintenance support divisions of Convoi BV.

On 1 January 2008 Mammoet Nederland BV took over the Convoi fleet of about 70 cranes up to 500 tonnes capacity, around 130 employees and the lifting depots in Venlo and Breda. Convoi will continue its operations in the industrial and project relocation business.

Leon Spronken, Convoi managing director, said, “The international industrial relocations market has increasingly become the core-business of our company. This involves turnkey transfer of machinery, production lines, even the complete relocation of factories and chemical plants throughout the world. Convoi, with a number of foreign bases, has been a major player in the market for many years. Market leadership in Europe and ongoing internationalisation of the business form the new goals of the business. Its foreign operations now employ more than 250 employees, which means that the lifting and maintenance support activities no longer belong to the core-business of Convoi.”

Commenting further on the strategy, Spronken continued, “The lifting division had been on the point of expanding its markets and its fleet of cranes. At the moment, we operate primarily in the south of the Netherlands. Expansion requires heavy investment and this would restrict the growth opportunities presented by our industrial relocation activities. That was not part of our chosen strategy.”

Convoi will concentrate on industrial and project relocations locally and abroad. Convoi has more than 400 employees in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Slovakia and forecasts 2008 turnover at almost 𔘈 50 million (US$ 73 million). Further expansion in industrial relocations is expected in Europe and Asia. The first step in this direction has already been taken with the acquisition of a 40-employee company in Hagen, Germany (Ruhr region), which, from January 2008 will operate as Convoi Hagen GmbH.

Convoi started in 1998 when Dutch crane company Marcon (in Nuth and later Sittard) and industrial and project relocations business Geytenbeek (in Utrecht, formerly part of Nedlloyd/Van Gend & Loos) joined forces. Dabekausen, a crane lifting company in Beek, was also part of the Marcon group.