According to UK clamp manufacturer Cam-Lok, consolidation is a good thing. It was taken over by US lifting gear conglomerate Columbus McKinnon in 1998. “There was inward investment that improved the company,” said marketing manager Craig Taylor. “IP is still increasing market share. It looks like a good move,” he added.
Apart from its own Chester, UK factory, Columbus McKinnon still manufactures some clamps at its Yale factory in Velbert, Germany, according to Taylor. In France, clamp maker Topal Industries was bought by Tractel in 2004.
Independently-owned Italian firm Finat also makes clamps. It recently set up a new business, CB Lifting, to handle special engineering jobs.
Taylor said that Asian brands such as Tiger of Taiwan and eastern European products are biting into the low end of the European clamp market. Although there are no major eastern European brands now, he said that there would be “major changes” in the next five years.
European rigging gear manufacturer Gunnebo argues that Chinese products are not an immediate threat: “Increased competition from low-cost countries is noticeable within all of Gunnebo Lifting’s product areas. However, so far these low-price products have proven to be uneven in quality and the manufacturers have therefore had problems taking and retaining market shares in the long term,” it said in a recent brochure.
Up until May, when it announced its acquisition of Dutch manufacturer Inter Product, Crosby’s only end-of-line product was another forging, eyebolts. Crosby is noted for its forged products, primarily shackles, hooks, links, Spectrum grade 10 and grade 8 chain and fittings, and wire rope fittings. A separate part of the company, acquired in 1959, makes the McKissock hook block.
It does not manufacture slings, grabs, grapples, tongs, spreader beams, forks, or magnets – but it might yet buy manufacturers of these. Bridon and Parsons Chain, sister companies in the FKIGroup, manufacture wire rope and chain products.
“IP clamps fit Crosby’s strategy of growth through the acquisition of businesses with high quality products which can be distributed through Crosby’s international sales network,” the company said in its July annual report.
The role of that distribution network has become more important since Crosby’s UK-based parent company, FKI, decided to sell off its Certex distribution businesses to managers in a late 2003 strategic review, when the company decided to stop selling products it does not manufacture itself. Since then, FKI has sold off the Certex operations in the USA, France, the Netherlands, the Caribbean, the UK, and more recently operations in Scandinavia and the Baltic states, Russia and Germany, according to FKI’s 2004 annual report released in July, leaving only the Italian operations.
I think the group has lost two customer-friendly attributes when it sold off Certex: a catalogue business, and a range of complementary products manufactured by other companies. Gone are the Elephant hand chain hoists, cranes and lifting beams, and Haacon winches that customers could add to an order of 10 bags of shackles and a barrel of chain.
I believe Crosby’s purchase of a clamp manufacturer suggests that it is looking to expand its range not by buying in supplies and distributing them, but buying in suppliers, whose manufacturing processes it can control.
“IP has manufactured a complete line of quality lifting clamps for more than 30 years,” Crosby Group president Larry Postelwait wrote in a May letter to customers. “With its reputation for quality and innovation, IP is a perfect addition to our product offering. Because their business philosophies mirror those of the Crosby group, the synergy of the two companies provides great opportunity.”
The IP range will be branded CrosbyIP worldwide, and was folded into Crosby European distribution in July. European manufacturing and sales headquarters are in Putte, Belgium, and there are large distribution operations in Paris and Barnsley, UK. By coincidence, the McKissock modular replacement overhead crane block (see Hoist April p.9) is the first that Crosby UK is selling – and it is launching it at the moment. These two changes suggest a new direction for Crosby toward end-of-line components.
“We have never sold overhead crane hook blocks before. We’ve not sold spare parts in volume before,” said UKdirectorRichard Oldknow.
Crosby’s parent company, the FKI group, is buying in Asia as well. It announced in January that Bridon has acquired a majority stake of Chinese wire rope manufacturer Tianjin Golik No 1 Steel Wire Rope Company Limited.
Gunnebo goes it alone
Two major European rigging equipment competitors, Gunnebo and Van Beest, continue to buy in product to fill gaps in the manufactured range. Van Beest, the Dutch manufacturer of Green Pin shackles, also distributes a large range of other rigging equipment, including sockets, eyebolts, chain and fittings, turnbuckles, plate clamps, wire rope, slings, and other products.
Gunnebo makes hooks, chains and fasteners, crane blocks and polyester slings. It also distributes branded wire rope, chain hoists, lifting beams and plate clamps made by others. “Some external products are required to supplement the range and to be able to offer complete solutions for each local market,” Gunnebo said in a recent corporate document.
Gunnebo has four lifting equipment factories in Sweden and one each in Norway, Poland and the USA. Its Gunnebo Johnson crane block business makes blocks in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA.
Instead of buying in complementary companies, the lifting gear division of Gunnebo, 15% of the group’s business, has focused on breaking away from its parent, Gunnebo AB, which has diverged from general industrial manufacturing to focus on security products.
“Gunnebo was previously an industrial conglomerate, but is now a rapidly expanding into an international security group with activities within both physical and electronic security,” the company said in its stock exchange listing prospectus.
“For Gunnebo Industries, the stock market listing would provide favourable conditions for further growth in its core business areas, namely lifting, blocks, non-skid [tyre chains] and fastening,” the company said. “The streamlining would also improve Gunnebo Industries’ ability to play an active role in the restructuring of its industry.”
In June, the company gave shareholders one share in Gunnebo Industries for every five in the parent company. It did not go through an initial public offering. Trading of the shares began on 14 June. About half of its sales revenue goes to components, and 20% to chain. The company’s third quarter results – the first since the spin-off – are due next month.
I think Gunnebo will not be making any lifting equipment acquisitions until at least the new corporate structure settles down. And it has little need to diversify: alhough European lifting equipment sales up to June were stagnant, sales in the rest of the world grew.
Besides, it has a new market to explore: access equipment. In April, it bought Telesteps AB, a Swedish manufacturer of telescopically collapsible ladders mainly for the construction and service industries. It reported that it is extending that primarily European business into Asia.
