INTERVIEW
the company, with its 3,200 employees and
€1.3 billion annual turnover, will take its time
to find the right person.
“The board of directors asked me to be CEO
for this transition period and I agreed because
I am very close to the family.We will need a
certain period of time to find a new CEO and
we don’t want to do it on a hurry.The family
wants someone who can be very close to them,
and so they were confident to work with
me for this period.
“The profile of the new CEO
will be more operational and
less financial,” says Mr Bamas,
“The objective is to have a
CEO that will be close to
the field and close to the
commercial side of things
- very hands on.”
On the new CEO’s
agenda could be
the opening of an
assembly plant in Brazil
sometime in the next
two years. Mr Bamas
said the assembly plant
would be its only new
facility in the immediate
future, as the company’s
main focus of expansion
would be through new
dealerships, and the expansion
of existing ones in countries
like Russia.
D
ominique Bamas is passionate about
Manitou’s future – no surprise
considering he has been a friend
of the Manitou family for 25 years and an
independent board member since 2009.
He stepped in when Jean Christophe Giroux
stepped down from the CEO role in March
this year and will remain in charge until a
replacement is found. One thing is for sure,
“It’s very complicated to import products
to Brazil - import duties are very high, so we
would need to have a small assembly plant just
to avoid taxes.”
The new depot would assemble a range of
Manitou products. “But assembly plants are not
our main objective at the moment, we already
have eight assembly plants: four in France, one
in Italy and three in the US. If we have 10-15%
growth each year in the next five years, we will
probably need more plants, but that is not the
case for the moment.”
Concerning other markets, Bamas added,
“The main issue is to find the right go to
market strategy to develop our brand.We have
good products and industrial potential but in
many countries we have a small market share,
so we want to develop that.”
Another of Manitou’s strategies is to double
its output of access equipment within five
years. Powered access accounts for about 10%
of production, and this will be increased to
20% - more on that subject later. Despite this,
there are no plans to purchase other existing
companies. “It will be organic growth.We don’t
need to bother with new companies; we are
a family owned business; we are close to our
products and our customers and we want to
develop this.”
International development
Manitou’s biggest market is in its home
country of France, followed by other Northern
European countries and North America,
following its acquisitions of Gehl and Mustang.
The company is now setting its sights on the
so-called BRIC nations, with, as mentioned
a special focus on Brazil and Russia. “We will
try India and China but they are more difficult
because the products we produce are not really
well known, so we have to convince the market
first to use telehandlers, and that’s before we
convince them to use Manitou.”
Manitou interim CEO
Dominique Bamas is
planning a new era for
the company. He talks
to
Euan Youdale
about
new markets, expansion
of the access segment,
his own future, and, of
course, telehandlers.
Dominique Bamas,
Manitou interim CEO
In transition
access
INTERNATIONAL
JULY-AUGUST 2013
10
