Mitsubishi Nichiyu Forklift senior executives visited Impact Handling as the company is the sole distributor for Cat Lift Trucks in the UK and Irish markets.

Mitsubishi Nichiyu Forklift Co president Hideaki Ninomiya has met with Impact Handling managing director Terry Kendrew to discuss the company's continued growth strategy and plans for 2014, describing the forklift distributor as key to its growth in Europe.

Kendrew says Mitsubishi Nichiyu Forklift recognises the importance of the UK and Ireland to its continued growth aspirations. "We see it as a huge compliment that the man in charge of their global manufacturing operation was so keen to visit Impact Handling.

"It provided a great opportunity to discuss a joint strategy for building market share, and we received very positive feedback on steps we have taken in 2013 to expand our network coverage, with the opening of a depot in Manchester and the acquisition of Abex in Birmingham." (Forkliftaction.com News #637)

An Impact Handling spokesperson tells Forkliftaction.com News details of the strategies the companies discussed are confidential, but "will become evident in the marketplace over time".

Mitsubishi Nichiyu Forklift Co was created through the merger of Nippon Yusoki and the forklift truck's division of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd, known as Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift (Forkliftaction.com News #594).

Ninomiya visited Impact Handling's flagship depot in Corby together with Yuichi Mano, director and senior executive officer of the corporate planning office, and Naoyuki Matsumura, president of Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift Europe (MCFE).

Established in 1985, Impact Handling is one of the UK's largest independent materials handling companies. Besides being the sole distributor of Cat Lift Trucks in the UK and Ireland, it is also main agent for major brands like Kalmar, Combilift, Lancer, Narrow Aisle Flexi, Mobicon and JLG.

The company operates from 11 locations and has over 300 employees, including 200-plus service engineers. It operates a combined fleet of more than 5,000 rental units, and supports 2,000 customer-owned machines and 2,000 used assets.