Mitusbishi Nichiyu Forklift's headquarters in Kyoto

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) and Mitsubishi Nichiyu Forklift Co., Ltd. have taken a joint decision to launch a preparatory committee following the decision to purchase UniCarriers announced on July 31.

The committee will be launched on October 1 and will be jointly operated by MHI, Mitsubishi Nichiyu Forklift and UniCarriers, with MHI director and senior executive vice president Atsushi Maekawa in charge. The committee will, to the extent permissible under applicable laws (including antitrust or competition laws), draw up business policies and strategies to further enhance (its) reputation as a world-class manufacturer of logistics machinery and equipment.

In today's forklift industry, amid intensifying global competition, scale expansion is becoming increasingly important for securing profitability, according to a statement from MHI and Nichiyu. Scale expansion has also become indispensable in the realm of research and development, including new technologies, as the industry increasingly faces the need to respond to global environmental issues.

Through acquisition of UniCarriers, MHI and Mitsubishi Nichiyu Forklift will achieve a full line-up of product offerings, giving them greater response capacity to customers' diverse needs. The move is also targeted at enhancing the companies' R&D capabilities and boosting their product competitiveness.

Furthermore, through mutually complementary sales networks, MHI's and Mitsubishi Nichiyu Forklift's global expansion opportunities will be enhanced, thereby strengthening their business foundations and enabling expansion in business scale. In addition, by aggregating the cutting-edge innovative technologies of the MHI group companies, the acquisition of UniCarriers is aimed at creating products of high added value and a business model transcending the conventional parameters of the logistics machinery and equipment industry, the statement concludes.