Yale Queensland has been sold to Budget Forklifts.

Yale Queensland, the last remaining wholly owned retail dealership of the Nacco Material Handling Group (NMHG) in Australia, was sold this week to Perth-based Budget Forklifts.

NMHG Asia Pacific general manager Ian Neilson tells Forkliftaction.com News that the deal was concluded on Monday, with a media statement expected to be released shortly.

Since NMHG sold off its Australian Hyster operations in April last year to Adapt-A-Lift ((Forkliftaction.com News #417), it has been an open secret in the industry that it would seek to do the same with its Yale dealerships in Sydney, Melbourne and Queensland.

And in just 16 months, it has done exactly that, with its Yale operation in Sydney the first to go, bought by Hystandard Handling Equipment in mid-December 2009 (Forkliftaction.com News #468).

Rumours surfaced in February this year that a sale of the Queensland dealership was imminent and Forkliftaction.com News was first to publish that Budget Forklifts, the independent Yale dealer in Western Australia, was a potential buyer (Forkliftaction.com News #449).

However, after months of speculation, it was the Melbourne dealership that was sold first in early July, with Hystandard Handling Equipment again the buyer.

Commenting on the news of the sale of Yale Queensland to Budget Forklifts this week, John Flinn of Hystandard tells Forkliftaction.com News that he believes the Queensland operation is an excellent fit for Budget in terms of customer profile and the mining businesses in the two states.

"My warmest congratulations to Tim Leunig and Budget Forklifts, I wish them all the best and look forward to working with them on national deals."

And so ends the final chapter of NMHG's retail dealerships in Australia.