Haulotte adds scissors and production plants

The agreement was announced on the first day of the Intermat exhibition in Paris, where Haulotte showed the 18.5 m model.

A joint statement by the two companies said; “This is a win-win agreement for both companies; for Haulotte it provides an extension to their scissor lift range and fast track route to market with machines with an excellent reputation. For Holland Lift, it provides, amongst other things, an increase in production capacity in this fast growing segment of the scissor lift industry.”

Alexandre Saubot, Haulotte's managing director, acknowledged that the Holland Lift machines were premium, niche products, but said; “Proving that we can sell a high premium product will benefit the image of the business”.

Haulotte also announced plans to build two new production facilities in Europe - in Spain and Eastern Europe - and said it was negotiating an exit from its telehandler alliance with Faresin to “go it alone”.

The new facility in Eastern Europe will build aerial platforms, with the factory in Spain to make Haulotte's ‘diversified' products, including telehandlers and the Multijob earthmoving machine. Mr Saubot said Haulotte did not want to find itself short of production capacity in mid-2007; “We do believe that [Eastern Europe] will be the first [new] region to grow, and we do have suppliers there, and the labour costs are low.”

Haulotte has also decided that Faresin, its telehandler joint venture partner, does not share its ambitions. It aims to negotiate a termination of the agreement by the end of 2006 and then build its own machines. “We want to do more”, said Mr Saubot, “not get 30% of the market, 5 to 10% is enough. So we are working to build our own products.”