And because of this, KION is **** near going under. Should never have allowed China engineering and manufacturing

It's a fact now go to bloomberg news Mitsubishi gets it. Kion has missed this huge opportunity for the North american market.

The sale of UniCarriers has been confirmed.

Mitsubishi has confirmed the acquisition of UniCarriers, ending weeks of market speculation.

In a statement, Misubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) and Mitsubishi Nichiyu Forklift Co., Ltd. say their respective boards have approved the acquisition of all shares of UniCarriers Holdings Corporation (UniCarriers) currently held by Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., Ltd. and Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.

Full report in next week's Forkliftaction.com News

exhalt,
Mitsubishi is made up of several different operating companies. From the lift truck standpoint the are produced under the MHI (Mitusbishi Heavy Industries)/Nicihiyu group which includes the MCFA, S & E companies and the auto business under the Mitsubishi Motors group. These companies pretty much sink or swim on their own.

Partsguy5 , we are not insiders, in a way i was right because if you look back to 5 april post i did say this , We did get some market info that did indicate that KION needed to buy Unicarrier to get were they needed to be for their 20 20 plan like now they must buy NACCO to make this plan half way work but even with this this will be a struggle. And for a company Like KION if they wanted Unicarrier and needed Unicarrier like they did to get 20 20 targets they could quite easily out Bid Mitsi. The fact that Mitsi probably made a lower bid than KION could have gone is for people to make up there own minds on. A second question would be why would mitsi buy unicarrier when they have a lot of there own problems in there car business. They are to stop car manufacturing in the US to shore up their Asian business. so why take on all the problems of Unicarrier

As for Nissan name it took years for Nissan to build their brand and name so for them when they got out of forklifts it would be protect their name more than anything else. This is like the Linde name Linde gas own this but needed to let KION keep the name as part of the sale , but this will come to a end over the next couple of years.

AS for KION don't be fooled they are not a German company any more their majority of their shares will now be in Chinese hands and most of their development is being done there in China. OK they do have manufacturing in North America , south America and europe but a lot of the supply now comes from China and the development comes from there as well.

Weichai who now basically control KION at the time of take over said they would invest in Linde hydraulics in Germany but in fact did not do this and did invest in china instead moving tech and jobs to china.


This is like saying Volvo cars is still a Swedish company when its is owned buy the Chinese

Exalt I would have to agree with Tampa. You make a lot of assumptions with little to back it up.
Unless you are a insider I would guess that there is more to the story. There had to be a pretty good reason for them to no longer use the Nissan name. If I had to guess when Nissan was spun off from the automotive they would have had to pay a license fee to Nissan for the use of the name.
As far as Kion they are still a Germany company they just have manufacturing in China like every other manufacture.

Hi Tampa 2 the KION uncarrier deal was practically a done deal but then the Japanese government probably got involved to save face and jobs. Like has been pointed out KION is now seen as a Chinese company and for a Chinese company to buy a Japanese company was nether going to happen. Mitsubshi now have the problem that the Nissan TCM merger caused in the creation of Unicarrier. If this deal had worked then Unicarrier clearly would not have been for sale but this has other sly not worked and the Japanese are looking for a way out. Unicarrier losing the Nissan name was a big blow but in all the trucks were the same and the components had not changed so it was all down to either Nissan was losing market share to start with and this is why they got out or the markets did not like the new ideas. either way the unicarrier deal thats was done must not of worked out as they planed other wise why sell. You would not sell a good company that has good potential for this price. How Mitsubshi moves this forward will be interesting as the company must employee over 1,000 people in Japan.

This is not a good deal for Mitsubshi and it looks like it was asked to do the deal rather than wanted to do the deal. The Japanese forklift industry is looking like it needs a big shake up with both Unicarrier and Komatsu struggling so these will all go into one big company to try to sort its self out but this again will have problems.

No offense Exalt, but your source of info appears to be somewhat lacking in accuracy. Having said that, it will be interesting to watch the Unicarriers process unfold. My guess? The more things change, the more they stay the same. There's no advantage to making wholesale changes in an organization just acquired. If I was part of UC'a dealer network, I'd be disappointed about losing the "Nissan" brand plate... Let's see what develops. I'm certain that UC's direction will be much clearer by the end of 2015, and I'm equally certain it will very similar to their direction last year. I think Shakespeare summed up these mergers and acquisitions best, 500 years ago... "It is a tale told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".

Stan Simpson a very highly respected person in the industry made a point in IVT in 2013


he said he could see the swing to individual component exchange rather than in field or work shop repair.


I'm sure both Toyota and KION will be spending millions on this but as yet they have not come up with a marketable option.

Leasing has hit the nail on the head , the Japanese political system woke up to a Chinese company buying unicarrier and this would have probably
more to do with this. But it does now leave KION with a big problem their only option now is to buy NACCO but this might encourage other biders for NACCO mainly from Korea , KION know if they now lose the NACCO bid as well it will be all over for becoming No1 again. and their 2020 strategy will be in ruins. Its great news for NACCO as their value has shot up knowing KION must buy them and the others knowing this is the chance to over take KION.


KION will loose the linde name soon so this might be the beginning of the end for them


If Mitsubishi now move to work more closer with Junghienric they will soon over take KION and move KION down to Number three if KION don't do some thing like buy NACCO fast. A move to bring in a company such as Heli to KION will only show the market that in fact KION are now prominently Chinese.


If KION have lost this deal which i sure they thought they had done there will be many people asking them selfs inside KION how is the best way out with out damage to their repetition. No one will want to be seen as the person who led a Great Germany company into Chinese hands and then down.


Toyota will be happy as they have a clear advantage over KION now and KION spending around 120 million a year on R&D won't be money well spent if their new 10 ton - 16 ton trucks are to go buy with the H25T the Chinese designed small truck. Why would any customer want to buy a Linde new big truck made in China when they can get a better product for a lower cost.

Main reason, why KION has lost the tender might be, that KION is too "chinesish" for a japanese seller...

Exalt, what do you make of Mitsubishi winning the race to buy Unicarriers? Do you think this will happen or will Kion buy Unicarriers.

What is interesting in the hunt to be Number one is even when KION Unicarrier deal goes throw they still won't be number one so KION will have to add NACCO as well to get there


KION are about 1.2 Billion euro lower in turn over than Toyota so Unicarrier on there own won't cover this so NACCO will be needed as well. But then you have Toyota spending again to try to take number one spot back.


The consolation in this market is going to be very interesting i can see the top two dominating and others just trying to keep up.

But look on the bright side when markets get like this innovation normally breaks the deadlock and turns it all upside down.

Going to be a very interesting time to 2020

Im sure im right. KION need this deal but Unicarrier need it as well so it depends who needs it most for the price and that's unicarrier.


Your right KION are looking to be one of the most profitable companies in this field but they won't do this by charging higher prices than other manufacturers. they will have to try to do this in other ways by offering better services and lowering costs.


KION are going in the wrong direction with China but they are a Chinese company now and China will produce more of the KION products and develop more so why should a customer pay the Higher Linde price say for a 12 ton truck when there are plenty of 12 ton truck coming out of China. they won't and they won't pay for Czech truck either so KION will have a image problem in a couple of years time Like HC and Heli


What KION need to do is look to become a tech leader Like Linde was before but not any more Linde like i have said have gone backwards. And insted of Gordon Riske being the one who leads Linde and KION forward he Knows he on to a looser and will move on before the end of the next year or the year after. He won't want to be the one in charge when this all goes wrong. same with Toyota they are democracies were to many people are looking after their own interest and not the companies.

@exalt,
Thanks a lot for the Argumentation. I can follow it - for KION, it makes sense to buy market share in Japan and the US.
But the seller knows this - so pushing the sales price could lead to a step out of KION.
For Gordon Riske, CEO of KION, market share is just one of the Strategic targets for 2020, besides being the most profitable and EBIT-resilient company in the industry.
So lets see, if you will be Right....