INTERVIEW
12
access
INTERNATIONAL
JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2015
stood at $140million,partly following a
leveragedbuyout (LBO) in2008.Restructering
that debtwill be part of this year’s deal with
Manitex.
Oil&Steel’s previous ownerswere an
Italianprivate equity company andminority
shareholders, someworking in the company,
includingMr Fucili, andothers not.
As far asMr Fucili is concerned the new
partnership is a perfectmatch and allows
the group tooffer a range of products that
are complementary to eachother but donot
overlap,plus aworldwide distributionnetwork.
Manitex is particularly interested inSouth
America and theMiddleEast, explainsMr
Fucili.
As it happens some 70%ofOil&Steel’s
sales are outsideEurope, including the
aforementionedmarkets.“Thesemarkets are
very interesting toManitex so therewill be
good synergies for distribution channels as
we have a gooddistributionnetwork in these
places.”
Therewill alsobe industrial and technology
synergies from the deal, addsMr Fucili.For
example,Oil&Steel has a plant inRomania
which canpotentially be used to supply
components for thewhole group.“We produce
structural parts inRomania and those parts are
very similar toothers in the group.The idea
is tooptimise the distribution andproduct
structure and increase themargin.”
Speaking to
AI
inSeptember last year,Mr
Fucili saidManitexwould see a 12-month
turnover of aboutUS$275millionby the end
of 2014,whileOil&Steel would achieve up
toUS$120million in sales.This forecasted
figurewas confirmed in January this year,
whenManitex said the new group, together
withASV, its recent joint venturewithTerex
Corporation,would start 2015 at an annual
sales rate of approximately $500million.
Strong force
Othermembers ofManitex International
include fellow Italian cranemanufacturer
Valla and container handling equipment
specialistCVSFerrari.“These companies are
very physically close tous in Italy,many of
our suppliers are the same, sowewill work
together,”explainsMr Fucili.
The group also includesUS-based crane
companiesManitex andBadger, aswell as
ManitexLiftKing andLoadKing.Under
the deal,PMbranded cranes andOil&Steel
platformswill be added to theManitex product
section.
“The reality is,we are not an Italian company,
we are anmultinational company.Our business
is already 90%outside Italy and it shows that
our strategy to exportwas right.”
PMGroup’sCEO
Luigi Fucili
spoke to
EuanYoudale
about its acquisition
inJanuary byManitex
International and its plans
for theOil &Steel brand.
B
ack in July last yearManitex
International announced it would
acquirePMGroup,which includes
Italian articulating cranemanufacturer PM
and aerial work platformproducerOil&
Steel.The deal finally closed in Januarywith a
purchase price ofUS$91million. (SeeNews,
page 6, formore financial details).
PMGroup’sCEOLuigi Fucili told
AI
itwas
the best opportunity for PM andOil&Steel
to continue growth.“We have knownManitex
and its president formany years andwhile it
was not an easy negotiationbetweenus,we
realised that this solutionwas the best for all
the companies tomake themmore competitive
in thewholemarket.”
Mr Fucili adds,“We areworkingwith a very
bigdebt in terms of previous investments.This
willmake the debt lighter.”
By the time of the acquisition that debt
Acquisition trail
Luigi Fucili, PM Group CEO.
Part of Oil & Steel’s stand at APEX 2014,
duringwhich the company launched its
20mworking height Snake H Plus double
articulated truckmount and the 18m
working height Octopus 18 tracked platform.
