Laadur facility in Tallinn, Estonia.

Laadur OÜ, Yale's official dealer in the Baltic countries, celebrated its 15th anniversary last week. In 1993, it became the first forklift dealer in Estonia to offer an alternative to the ubiquitous Balkancar trucks.

Urmas Laanen founded Laadur at a time when Estonia, like the rest of Eastern Europe, was swamped with the Bulgarian Balkancar forklifts. Laadur sold Rocla warehouse trucks from Finland and Yale forklifts through Rocla, then a Yale dealer.

When Rocla established its own Estonian operations, Laadur continued selling Yale's full forklift range. Today, Laadur has expanded its product offering to include Baumann and Combilift forklifts, Hitachi construction equipment and Haulotte aerial work platforms. It also provides warehouse design and consulting services.

Managing director Fred Märtsoo says his company is a market leader in forklift and racking sales in Estonia, and a leader in racking sales in Lithuania.

Famous Estonian rock band Ultima Thule on stage during Laadur's 15th anniversary celebration.

"Due to the small size of the Baltic market, we do not have a great chance to influence the materials handling market but in the Baltics, Laadur is well-known in the industry," he says.

Laadur services about 3,000 forklifts in Estonia and another 1,000 forklifts in the rest of the Baltics. Since 2003, it has expanded to locations in Latvia (Riga) and Lithuania (Vilnius and Klaipeda). It has five locations in Estonia and its 2007 turnover is EUR18 million - EUR13 million in Estonia, EUR3 million in Lithuania and EUR2 million in Latvia.

Märtsoo says the company's strengths are its flexibility, strong aftermarket support team and its reputation as a total solutions provider.

"[Our] product portfolio is able to solve specific materials handling needs. We have a good service team including 20 mobile service vans, a central workshop and regional workshops," he explains.

Laadur's challenge today is to rise above the cooling economy in the Baltic countries.
"[We] are keeping a high level of aftermarket activities and also adding new products to our range like aerial work platforms and construction equipment ... (The) main idea is to widen our customer base," Märtsoo says.

The independent dealer, which received ISO9000 quality certification in 2000, employs 75 people: 58 in Estonia, 10 in Lithuania and seven in Latvia.