(L-R) Bert-Jan Knoef, chairman STILL's management board; Armin Rappen, chairman of mateco AG's management board; and Marco-Andre Riewe, director of the business line used/rental at STILL

STILL GmbH, of Hamburg, has signed a partnership agreement with mateco AG, from Stuttgart, to complement each other's rental equipment ranges.

The electric forklift manufacturer and work platform rental company finalised a contract on 1 October, providing for co-operation in Germany, Poland and Luxemburg. Both partners will offer their customers equipment for rental projects combining forklifts, warehouse equipment and work platforms.

Bert-Jan Knoef, chairman of STILL's management board, explains one of the partnership's benefits. "Our claim is to offer each customer a solution precisely tailored to their individual demand from a single source. In this, the co-operation with mateco is an important step because, in many industries, forklifts, warehouse equipment and working platforms are combined in a single application."

Knoef points to the media, film and event industries and construction of industrial plants and wind energy projects, as examples. As most of those projects are temporary, many customers in those industries prefer rentals.

Mateco AG management board chairman Armin Rappen says the company sees a "clearly growing tendency" for customers to rent work platforms with forklifts. "We are happy to be able to fall back on the broad product portfolio provided by STILL in the future. This way we [can] target our offers more precisely to customer demand."

STILL operates 35 rental stations in Germany and offers more than 6,000 rental trucks in 60 different types. Mateco AG has 31 German rental stations, offering customers more than 4,300 work platforms in 400 different versions. Mateco claims to be Germany's largest independent rental company for work platforms.