25.07.2008

Haulotte acquires Bil-Jax

Haulotte, the French based aerial lift manufacturer – and market leader in Europe, has purchased all of the shares in Bil-Jax, the USA based manufacturer of trailer lifts, self-propelled booms and steel scaffold products.

The all cash deal was completed last night and announced along with Haulotte’s half year results this evening. The value of the deal has not yet been disclosed. All of Bil-Jax’s management team is expected to remain in place, although they will of course no longer be the owners of the company.

Bil-Jax had sales last year in the region of $80 million, 90 percent of which was in North America. The company employs 300 and has a relatively modern plant, completed in 1995 and covering 25 acres with 325,000 square feet under roof.

In a press announcement just released, Jeff Ott Bil- Jax chief executive said: "We have taken the next natural step of growth and together can offer an increasingly exciting set of access solutions for consumers, while becoming better positioned to compete in the access market. We believe this alliance with Haulotte Group will deliver superior value, better choices, and more innovation to our customers and industry partners. Additionally, it will increase products offerings and create a position outside of the US."

Alexandre Saubot, chief executive of the Haulotte Group told Vertikal.Net that in terms of strategy and distribution, nothing was decided or fixed, instead the Haulotte and Bil-Jax teams will be working together to maximise the synergies and opportunities between the two companies.

This includes the continuation of the Bil-Jax steel scaffold business, with a look at how Haulotte’s distribution network might help boost sales overseas. Bil-Jax will of course give Haulotte first class market coverage in North America, not to mention some very experienced and well respected senior sales and marketing executives.

In Europe Bil-Jax has made a solid start in several markets including Germany and more recently the UK, where Promax has got off to strong start. Saubot said that no automatic decisions to change any such distribution will be made. The plan is to look at everything to see how the combined businesses might gain from their different strengths.

Bil-Jax was founded in 1946 when two brothers, Bill and Jack Ashenfelter who owned a plastering business, started selling simple stand they had designed. In 1947, they sold the design rights for their invention to Wilbur Wyse and Bil-Jax, began manufacturing its first product. The business was sold by Steve Wyse in 1993 to German based scaffold producer Plettac AG .

In 2003 Plettac was in bankruptcy and Bil-Jax's senior management team, including: Ott, Chuck Hutchinson - vice president of sales and marketing, Tom Truesdale - vice president of finance , Dave Brinegar -engineering manager and Steve Fryman -director of purchasing organised a Management Buy Out supported by private equity firm Centerfield Capital.

The management team recapitalised the business buying Centerfield out in 2006.

Vertikal Comment

In order for Haulotte to truly break into the North American market, it needed to buy a local company, it missed Snorkel and none of the other companies were for sale or of a scale that Haulotte could manage.

Bil-Jax would not have been the first choice given the product strengths, however looking at it another way, the two compliment each other. Haulotte takes over almost where Bil-Jax leaves off. Bil-Jax offers a wide range of trailer lifts and scaffold products that are sold and rented largely by the smaller independent operators.

As such it has tremendous market coverage, the key will be whether Haulotte can convert this customer base into its larger equipment. With an American manufacturing facility now within the group, at the time of a low dollar it could also benefit from putting some of its products into Bil-Jax’s Archibald, Ohio facility.

The most important thing for Haulotte, at least in the first year or two, will be to keep the senior managers such as Chuck Hutchinson and Jeff Ott on board and enthused. If they can achieve this in addition to manufacturing some products locally it could be the breakthrough that they have long sought. This his will certainly be an interesting acquisition