So based upon the suggested "Shambles you have now" stated below, if I could revert back to the original question: - What's happening at Mitsi CAT in the UK?,.. are we looking at a good, bad or indeed an indifferent future in the UK for MCFE?

Daniel, post your e-mail address and I will send you the sales figures around that time. MCFE never produced more than 15,000 c/b trucks out of Almere.

If you know the sales figures then I assume you know what the agreed target would have been for Mitsi sales via a newly formed stronger Mitsi network.

Anything would be better than the shambles you have now!!

if thery lost 20% of of production sales where do they sell this ammount now?. great bit of irony is the cat ad at the bottom of this page.(well thats waht i can see).

Millreef interesting figure of 20% of European sales there, not sure where you've got that from, but it gave me a chuckle.
How would the market be better now exactly if FMH had both brands and now under Briggs turned to Yale...wouldn't that be an even more significant impact for both brands then?

It seems the number of number of Mitsubishi machines sold in the UK is being underestimated by quite a way.

I would agree Milreef.

MCFE would have sold 1000+ machines thru Briggs plus a further say 200 or 300 thru the Mitsubishi network. They hit the Market via 2 routes - 1 national and 1 regional.

Not only have they lost a national presence in Briggs, the replacement in Impact appear trapped in their east England roots with no visible strategy to become a national distributor.

Yale would appear to be the beneficiary of MCFE's volume loss.

MCFE have only themselves to blame for the shambles they have in the UK.

Originally the strategy was to have the CAT brand targeted at the medium to large customers and the Mitsi brand as a low cost brand targeted at the small customers with typically less than eight trucks.

MCFE had agreed a few years ago to give both brands to FMH in the UK but got cold feet and pulled the plug at the last minute.

MCFE were aware for some time that Briggs were possibly going to distribute Yale, as that was part of the three year agreement with NACCO that allowed Briggs to buy FMH.

MCFE buried there heads in the sand and did nothing about their largest worldwide dealer's (20% of European sales) pending switch to Yale. Now they have a fragmented Mitsi network that is poorly managed by MCFE who have never had a clue when it comes to selling trucks to end users and a CAT brand that seems to have completely lost its way.

Another poor decision from MCFE when they could have joined forces with Jungheinrich in the UK to distribute the CAT brand.

MCFE are in a mess in the UK and don't seem to have anyone in the Netherlands who can sort it out.

The same truck with diffrent brands and diffrent dealers don't work. Linde / Lasnsing, Jughienrich /Boss , In a way Toyota /BT

At let will be the only one Nissan will disaprere so why have two.

It could work in some whare ware you have one brand stronger than the other but to have the same truck competing against the same truck in a other brand it just doesn't work. You will see hyster disapere from the small truck market and yale will take over leaving hyster with the larger trucks.. if you look at most chinese trucks the are all the same just diffrent coulor. Linde and Still are totally difrent.

jamesh, what you do not take into account is the size of the dealerships involved and the requirements of those individual situations.
Mitsubishi Forklift Trucks UK was established immediately after Hamech stopped the importation of Mitsubishi machines. The dealers of Hamech, which were many, then became direct factory dealers, which obviously requires significant work compared with dealing with a single dealer.

sorry what i mean in the uk cat was with Briggs and mitsubishi came in to run the mit dealers a few years ago.so you have MCFE looking after the mit dealers and cat reporting to mcfe in holland.

With that you could say why have Nissan/Atlet, Linde/Still, Yale/Hyster.

i agree all you have is two exact brands competing against each other.the mitsubishi brand is run by mitsubishi and the cat brand is on it own. how can that be fair.

Oilleak, I am with you on this one. The customers play all the firms off each other and then they get the FLTS cheap. No cash for repairs or wages. Only one winner and thats the customer. It was a firm that makes red FLTs that set the hire price so low 10 plus years a go. All they wanted to do was shift metal and this is where it has got us now. This job is stuffed. Sorry, moan over and done with for now.

Henley Hawk, I forgot to mention that yes both brands are distributed globally, however some countries do not have representatives for both.

Oilleak, I know nothing......I do not see multiple brands going anywhere soon and actually there will be increased focus on the core values of the two brands.

Come on DAN give us a bit more than that ? We all know the MUTLI product has never taken off in Europe especially the UK the brand name never crops up with customers. As for CAT thats not much better and the UK Dealer is laughed at in the trade cant remember when they last won a new order which was not to replace one of their own. The fork truck industry needs to get rid of more brands and then it can put pressure on customers to start paying a fork trucks real market worth 25 k for a 2.5 t unit or £150 pw.

I won't comment on the rest for various reasons, but just to let you know that Rocla is 100% owned by MCFE and is the MHI global design centre for warehouse equipment.