NZ Crane Group has sold its Wellington branch to Titan Cranes, in order to focus on their Auckland-based operation.
Deane Manley, NZ Crane Group managing director, says the sale will allow the company to build on its Auckland services, maintain a strong core mobile fleet and remain committed to serving much of the North Island.
“Wellington is a difficult market; it’s hard to justify growing as there is not enough scale with two strong competitors in the area,” he says.
“Obviously we remain competitors with Titan at a national level, but geographically we aren’t going head-to- head every single day. With that said, we will still head down here if there are jobs. We will still be servicing the wind farm just out of Palmerston North and our Grove 450 tonne mobile crane still heads all over the country.”
“We recently did work on the Manawatu gorge following a big slip, and bought the Grove down from Auckland. We flew drivers in on a relay run and it worked well – we are confident we can get anywhere we need to be quite easily.”
Manley also noted the close relationship shared with Titan Cranes, and that the sale would strengthen this.
“We share a lot of common vision in terms of industry leadership, safety standards, and industry-based training. We are closely aligned with Titan and there is quite a lot of potential to work together on issues going forward,” he says.
NZ Crane owned the Wellington branch for six years, originally purchased as Collins Cranes, a small family business operating in the area.
That acquisition was part of a development for a NZ Crane branch structure, beginning around seven years ago and discontinued following a shift in market conditions.
