Lencrow is now the Australian distributor for Nissan Forklift.

After months of speculation, Lencrow Materials Handling, which bought Powerlift's Nissan Forklift dealerships, has been confirmed as the Australian distributor for the brand.

Managing director Ross Grassick tells Forkliftaction.com News that the staff is excited at the prospect of being in control of the Nissan forklift brand in Australia. "The direction the company will move forward in broad terms is to offer a dealer network that will cover Australia, using both our own branches as well as a dealer network that will keep more jobs using local companies."

Grassick explains that since Lencrow took over the retail operations of the brand from Powerlift in 2014, "we had our sights on the UniCarriers Nissan product (Forkliftaction.com News #688).

"Lencrow who has been involved with the Nissan product since the early 1990s want to bring back the values that we offered our customers then, with improved spare parts and after sales support."

He adds that Lencrow has for over 38 years primarily been a service and hire company, with sales as a support role.

Nissan Forklift customers can expect "more dealers, more coverage and more after-sales support".

"We will be covering the parts requirements for all existing Nissan Forklift owners with over $1 million of spare parts stock and offering improved retail spare parts pricing; we want the best original parts to be at affordable prices," Grassick says.

Atsuhito Wada from Japan-based UniCarriers Corp, Nissan's parent company, says with the new appointment, the product range available to Nissan Forklift customers will double.

Grassick is enthusiastic. "UniCarriers offers products from all over the world with high-end warehousing equipment from Sweden. With (an additional) range from Japan, they can offer a range of IC units from 1,800 kg through to 33,000 kg. The Nissan range finished at 7,000 kg.

"With many of the models we can offer a low-tech and high-tech version."

Lencrow, established in 1976, is a family-owned Australian company run by Grassick. In 1990, the company was a major partner in Nomad Materials Handling when it was a Nissan Forklift dealership. The company has over 39 years of forklift experience - 25 of that with the Nissan Forklifts product.

UniCarriers was born in 2011 through the integration of Nissan Forklift and TCM (Forkliftaction.com News #563). "We have retained two business channels for both brands Nissan Forklift and TCM in Australia," says Wada.

Forkliftaction.com News contacted Perth-based Allied Forklifts which last year acquired the Nissan Forklift operation in Western Australia, while Lencrow took over Powerlift's Nissan Forklift retail operations in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle and Adelaide, but did not hear back by press time. Allied Forklifts is now a non-exclusive dealer for Mitsubishi Forklifts in Western Australia.

NTP Forklifts Australia CEO, Damien Garvey, tells Forkliftaction.com News that for part of 2015, NTP acted as a caretaker for the UniCarriers brand of forklifts after Powerlift announced its exit from the Australian forklift market. "This was at the request of the UniCarriers executive while they considered an alternative strategy (Forkliftaction.com News #738).

"As part of the recent partnership agreement between NTP Forklifts Australia and Jungheinrich AG (Forkliftaction.com News #741), it was agreed, together with the UniCarriers executive, that the Australian distribution for the complete range of TCM Forklifts would continue with NTP Forklifts Australia, and that (UniCarriers) had confidence in NTP's continued growth and investment in the brand."

NTP Forklifts Australia has been the Australian distributor for TCM Forklifts since 1998.