TextWho owns Unicarriers? Who are the owners of Unicarriers?
Currently Unicarriers is a joint venture between Nissan Motors, Hitachi Construction Machinery, and the Innovation Company of Japan (i.e. Japanese government/bailout type fund). Neither Nissan Motors (Nissan forklift brand) nor Hitachi (TCM forklift brand) really wanted to stay in the forklift business. In 2012 Unicarriers was formed as a sort of holding company for the Nissan and TCM forklift brands.
On July 31, 2015, Mitsubishi announced that it would purchase Unicarriers completely. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will own 65% and Mitsubishi Nichiyu will own 35%. Sounds like they’ll try to challenge Toyota
Questions remain:
– Will Unicarriers be managed separately? Or integrated with the MCF group?
– Will Unicarriers continue its strategy of buying retail dealerships (like they’ve done in the past with Capital Equipment in Wisconsin, New England Industrial Truck, Crepa in the Netherlands). How will this affect relations between that local MCF dealer and the MCF organization? “Gee, thanks for becoming my competitor now!”
– What happens with the Atlet group especially considering MCFA’s partnership wtih Jungheinrich in the USA?
– Will Unicarriers/MCF products eventually be the same forklift, just with different decals on them?
– Will this be the start of further industry consolidation? Kion/Nacco? Crown/Kion? What’s Toyota‘s next move?