In February, crane specialist Konecranes picked off some of Linde Material Handling’s assets to boost its own survival prospects. Then, in the dry industry, Bühler snapped up French grain milling specialist Maes to make in-roads in France.
And in the software sector, APS Technology proved too hard to resist for automation specialist ABB, who bought the vision-based automation solutions provider to expand its crane systems offerings.
Of course, nothing is simple and some of these deals include sweeteners for the weaker party. In what is a particularly woolly deal, the Konecranes deal sees it buy “certain assets” of the container handling lift truck business of Linde, while signing a “long-term supply agreement” to increase the global competitiveness of their respective container handling truck activities. Confused?
What is less woolly is the Finnish operator’s determination to do more than just ride out this storm, as it has also confirmed a cull in employees at its Finnish base in favour of a shift in manufacturing to its Asian base.
The headline for the Konecranes/Linde deal is collaboration is key, but the undercurrent is that the bigger fish are chasing the smaller and while the talk might be vague make no mistake the end goal is to take advantage of the downturn to strengthen market position by any means possible.
Those ‘big fish’ talk about improving market penetration, enabling new opportunities, increasing operational performance, strengthening service positions… but the bottom line is survival of the fittest.
Perhaps we should be pleased that it has taken this long for the stirring of the port company pot to start. But start it has and we should prepare ourselves for more buy-outs, joint ventures, and defaults in the months to come as those who have been simply hanging on in there finally give up the ghost.