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"