Cramo buys small German accommodation renter
15 April 2014
Cramo has acquired a small portable accommodation rental company in Germany. C/S RaumCenter GmbH, based in Frankfurt, had sales of €4 million in 2013 and has a fleet of 900 units.
The company, which has been trading for 30 years, will continue to operate under its current name “until further notice” and all its 21 staff are being taken on by Cramo. Klaus Schmidt, the owner and managing director of RaumCenter, will act as an adviser until the end of 2014.
The deal, for an undisclosed price, comes just a week after Cramo bought OptiRent, an earthmoving equipment rental company in Finland.
Cramo said the acquisition would help it establish and grow its modular space business in Germany. RaumCenter is particularly strong in the Rhein-Main area of Germany, with various private and public sector clients.
”C/S RaumCenter is a highly respected player within modular space especially in the Frankfurt market area”, said Petri Moksén, senior vice president of modular space at Cramo.
“The company has plenty of competence and knowledge of different types of modular space solutions, which further strengthens Cramo’s solution offering. In the future, our target is to grow the modular space business to cover entire Germany. Thus this acquisition provides Cramo a channel to penetrate the German modular space rental market”.
Raumcenter’s Mr Schmidt said Cramo had “excellent transferable skills both to continue as well as improve profitable business in this area in Germany…I strongly believe that this transaction will be for the benefit of our customers and employees.”
Dirk Schlitzkus, executive vice president, Central Europe at Cramo, said; “This acquisition complements and follows the plan that Cramo and Theisen have in Germany to expand offering according to the Cramo Concept".
The acquisition follows Cramo’s rebranding of its portable accommodation business as Cramo Adapteo, which was announced in March.
Germany is a key market in Europe’s portable accommodation sector, with companies including Portakabin and Algeco Scotsman active in the country.
Portakabin boosted its involvement in the market last year with the acquisition of Oecon Mobilraum GmbH, a manufacturer and distributor of modular buildings in Germany.
