The KION Group has announced that it has "comfortably outperformed" the market as a whole and strengthened its position in all markets as rumours about a Chinese industrial company's interest in the forklift supplier circulate.

A Handelsblatt report says Chinese machinery manufacturer Shandong Heavy Industry has been negotiating with KION Group's owners, Goldman Sachs and KKR, to buy a 25% stake worth EUR700 million (USD879 million) in the group. KION has declined to comment on what it says are "rumours and speculation". Goldman Sachs and KKR acquired the German company in 2006 for EUR4 billion (USD5.024 billion) from Linde AG (Forkliftaction.com News #285).

At the end of the first half of 2012, the group's total value of its order intake grew by 2.4% from 2011's EUR2.353 billion (USD2.956 billion) to EUR2.410 billion (USD3.027 billion) in what it calls "a slightly contracting market". Revenue jumped 9.4% to EUR2.311 billion (USD2.903 billion).

The group raised its earnings before interest and tax by over 20% to EUR213 million (USD268 million).

According to the group's intelligence, the global market for new industrial trucks in the first half of 2012 amounted to about 490,400 units, which was 3.2% lower than in the corresponding period of 2011.

Demand in Europe fell by 7.9% to 164,200 units. Demand in Western Europe in the first six months of 2012 declined by 8.8% year-on-year to 136,900 units due to the weakness of the economies in the southern European countries, KION says.

Demand in the Eastern European markets remained "virtually unchanged" in the same period of 2011 at 27,300 units (down by 3.3%). The American market grew by 1.8% to 111,300 trucks while demand in the Asian markets contracted by 2.6% year-on-year to 195,100 units.

The KION Group boasts that it increased its order intake for new trucks to just over 75,500 units, compared to 74,300 trucks for the same period in 2011. The 1.6% growth meant the group outperformed the global market.

KION completed two consolidation projects launched in 2011, with the production of counterbalance trucks at the plant in Bari, Italy relocated to Hamburg, Germany. The production of warehouse trucks will be transferred from Montataire, France to Luzzara, Italy in the second half of the year. Meanwhile, the new Voltas Material Handling plant in Pune ramped up its production in the second quarter of 2012, and now produces counterbalance trucks with capacities up to 5 T, electric forklifts and warehouse trucks. The range will be expanded to include trucks with capacities up to 16 T in the second half of the year.

The KION Group - comprising the six brands Linde, STILL, Fenwick, OM STILL, Baoli and Voltas - claims to be Europe's market leader in industrial trucks. It employed about 22,000 people and generated revenue of around EUR4.4 billion (USD5.527 billion) in 2011.