No Middle East plans for Waitzinger yet - Liebherr

Liebherr finalised the acquisition of concrete pump manufacturers Waitzinger in October.

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Liebherr has no immediate plans to sell concrete truck pumps and stationary pumps in the Middle East as a result of its acquisition of Waitzinger, said Frank Siefert, managing director of Liebherr-Mischtechnik GmbH.

The acquisition of the mid-sized company Waitzinger Baumaschinen was announced in October, with Liebherr saying that it would distribute the company's truck-mounted concrete pumps, trailer concrete pumps and truck mixer concrete pumps through its sales network.

Speaking to PMV Middle East, Siefert said that the Liebherr will first focus on Europe, looking to build up a strong hub in its main market. The company will then consider expanding the pump offering will into markets where it has production facilities, including Brazil, India, Thailand, and China.

"Priority number one is Europe. Later on, perhaps within two years range, we have to see if we can touch the market in China. There is a potential because, especially from the concrete side, we have been established more than 20 years in China," said Siefert.

The purchase of Waitzinger included production facilities. Longer-term, Liebherr will consider whether the plant can be expanded to cope with the increased volume of pumps, or whether certain components will need to be manufactured at other facilities.

"Waitzinger is a small company, family owned, but they did a good job over the last 20 years. But now we have our Liebherr sales and service network in place, and so from that we will see strong potential."

There are also opportunities to engineer the pumps with parts that have commonality with the Liebherr family, including control systems, lighter weight parts, and interfaces to the chassis, said Siefert.
 

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