For those of you who think that this is the first time a major lift truck oem has had a close relationship with Cascade you need to check your lift truck history. Hyster was started by the Schweigert family, Cascade was started by the Warren family. The Head of the Schweigert family married the daughter of the head of the Warren family. Both families homes are in "the compound" near Portland. For many years Hyster was the largest customer of Cascade. There were many times that Cascade was suspected of giving preferential pricing to Hyster because of the two families relationship. This of course was not true however, the industry water cooler cabals were always speculating on how this was costing them sales. Throughout all of this, Cascade continued to grow by providing the best attachments in the business and customers demanded them. This has not changed over the years and customers still prefer Cascade over the competition. If certain dealers elect to stop selling Cascade due to this ownership change, it will probably cost them business. It is a foolish course to follow as some of the business they lose will probably go to Toyota. The smart dealers will realize that it is not to Toyotas advantage to give their dealers any preferential pricing on Cascade products but to continue to conduct all business as arms length transactions regardless of the oem a dealer represents. Those dealers will continue to fulfill customers requests for Cascade attachments. I have been in this business for 38 years and for all of those years Cascade has made the best attachments, offered the best service and is the brand that more customers preferred. Regardless of what you may think about Toyota, they are not stupid. They would not invest the amount of money that they have in purchasing Cascade and then run it to lose both share in the attachment business as well as revenue. As I said earlier, smart dealers will realize this and take advantage of the ones who do not and take their business. Not necessarily survival of the fittest but survival of the smartest! Just for the record, I do not work for Cascade and never have.

I don't think much will change, everyone is just a bit over excited right now. All the big OEM's will continue to buy Cascade product line and indirectly will support Toyota.

Just look at the after market parts business every OEM (except Clark & MCFA) are all supporting TVH/SMH and the OEM's have created a big giant in our industry.

We all know parts is a great profit center but why does Toyota, Hyster-Yale, Komatsu, Nissan etc.. all continue to run after market parts program through TVH who is actually a competitor of thiers??....same thing will happen on the attachment side, TICO will continue to get larger and more powerful.

I'm reading some very well thought out comments and here may be another. No discussion has been placed on patient or intellectual property rights that are presently owned by Cascade.

I have some ken folk over at Cascade, there is one **** of a backlash from some really big dealers, memos are being e-mail out already advising sales depts.

One thing, I've learned is that "water cooler" talk is highly unreliable and "may'"contain a thread of truth and it is very hard to find that thread - sorta' like trying to find that proverbial needle in that haystack.
From this perspective Cascade has developed a great product support group, extensive product line offering have been a leader in bringing solutions for the end users over the years. At this point in time, other attachment companies have a long road to catch up regarding support, product line offerings. And when it comes to keeping the customer "up and running" they have a decided edge, it would be foolish to switch suppliers due to shear emotions & run the risk. As they say the "devil you know, is often better than the devil you don't know". Don't take me wrong Cascade is not "perfect" but who is and time can change everything. Like Clark used to be #1 - but that was yesterday & yesterdays is gone.

from what i have been hearing at the water cooler is why would anyone want to help thier competition by dealing with them? Toyota has been a pain in the backside for every mfg and now that they pulled this move trying to gain a large portion of the marketshare in the attachment business, It has everyone rethinking their business relationships with them. It also wreaks of desperation on toyota's part because they are loosing traction in the american market. Toyota has pulled every trick in the book to try and gain top marketshare in the lifttruck side and now this?
What i see in the future for the attachment business is the other lifttruck mfg's leaning towards other attachment providers such as longreach and bolzoni etc. Because like i said before, why would anyone want to aid one of thier main competitiors by buying from them only to help them gain more marketshare?
Personally if it were me? i'd shuck them like a bad habit ;o)

You all are looking wayyyy into this too much. Toyota Industries Corporation bought the company. It's obvious they spent a lot of money for this good company. Why would they want to ruin the good relationships with all the lift truck manufacturers of the world. The Hyster's, Yales, Cats, Nissans, Clarks, Toyotas, Mitsubishi's, etc. are all great customers of Cascade, and TICO will do everything they can to continue and improve those good relationships. But funny to see everyone run around with their heads cut off determining what the end result will be and how it will impact the market. I don't see much change if any...only difference is Toyota Industries Corporation is now making the profit that Cascade once made. That's all.

I agree with what you are saying except for the impact on Cascade sales. Yes a lot of manufacturers are using the the Nissan engine as well as using the Mitsi platform and so on, but that is from a manufacturing level not a dealer level. We will as alway's have the option in the price pages for example to quote Cascade or Bolzoni but with dealers knowing who owns Cascade they might lean towards the Bolzoni product rather than support a competitor.

RReed, These buyouts/joint ventures have been going on for some time, here is a bit of history that I can recall from my 41 years - Bolzoni bought Brudi; Ken-Har (the Canadian fork company) bought Dyson (the US fork company); then Cascade bought Ken-Har and the owner of Ken-Har bought the Cascade mast line, now known as LiftTech and before that happened Ken-Har ownership investigated the possible purchase of Cascade; Nissan bought Barrett; Hyster bought Lewis Sheppard; Yale bought Automatic Komatsu bought out Kalmar AC; BT bought Prime-Mover, then Toyota bought BT; Briggs Equipment & other dealers (like Equipment Depot via Pon) have been buying out other dealers & brands for a period of time, Mistubishi and Caterpillar joined hips under the MCFA joint venture; Hyster & Yale came under the control of NACCO and the beat goes on; the only lift truck companies that died the death of a raged doll are White-Mobilit & Allis-Chalmers and it is a very safe bet that more of the same can be expected in the future.
The lift truck market is very mature and manufacturers have excess production capacity & no real significant product differentiation between brands other than a few "bells & whistles" and as Sam Walton said about the success of Wal-Mart - "Volume is everything" - same theory applies to lift trucks manufacturers & dealers
From my viewpoint, the new lift truck market that hit record levels in the 2000-2007 can be attributed to the end users choosing an greater level of FMV financing programs 36 - 60 mths. periods. When I first started in the business it was expected the first owner (larger users 20 units or more/location) would keep a unit on the average of 9-10 years before replacing with another new unit. The 1-2 truck users still keeps his new lift 20 years or more or just keeps buying used.

In my opinion, if or when this buyout passes all the legal tests, being owned by Toyota will have little impact on Cascade sales. Just look at all the lift truck companies that are using Nissan engines and for a period of time MCFA built complete 8-11K pneumatics for Nissan.

Raymond has done nothing innovative since Toyota purchased them. Raymond was an innovative company at one time.... What have they done recently?

I believe Raymond is doing just fine since purchase by Toyota.

What all of you fail to see is the great big picture of thing to come over the next year or two. Next you will see one of the big players buying another attachment company. Expect to see some of the big players be bought out.

Give it a couple of years for the Toyota rot to set in & just watch Cascade product quality start to go downhill.
BT product quality has dropped since Toyota stuck its nose in.

I don't see the sense in this move by Toyota, yes they have a great product for all of their business but how many offline (not Toyota dealers) are going to purchase attachments from a competitor.
I bet Balzoni is licking their chops for all the increased business they'll recieve without working for it.

I thought we had all these experts!1

As Yogi Berra used to say "It Ain't Over Until It's Over"
"Cascade Corporation Investor Alert: Proposed Sale Investigated By Securities Attorneys At The Briscoe Law Firm And Powers Taylor, LLP"