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.