York buys-out Piacenza
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• Management-owned trailer manufacturer York Group has finalised its takeover of what it claims is Italy's second biggest trailer maker, Umberto Piacenza, for 26.5 million. York says it is its first move of a major drive into Europe.
Piacenza's managing director, Giovanni Dosi, will join York's main board with responsibility for the Continent. The Italian company makes 1,100 drawbars and semi-trailers every year and specialises in steel and aluminium dry powder tanks. Its main factory is at Cremona, about 80km southeast of Milan.
The purchase of Piacenza is one of a series of moves by York to strengthen its presence in Europe, where it is still number two to the alsorecently-merged Fruehauf subsidiaries (SESR) operation. Other moves have been the setting-up of a factory at Dordrecht in Holland, and a Scandinavian sales operation based in Denmark.
Piacenza, as a consumer of some 3,000 axles a year, offers considerable scope for expanding York's exports of trailer components into Europe. It also controls two African trailer companies. Lenco in Zambia and REM in Nigeria, which offer similar opportunities.
York also sees possibilities in expanding Piacenza's sales in Italy by offering its frameless vans and reefers as complete vehicles in a market which has traditionally bought trailers and their bodywork from separate suppliers. The reverse will happen with tankers, where York will be able to draw on Piacenza's capabilities to take it into a market where it has so far been unrepresented.
The move into Italy will, says York, be followed by a similar acquisition in France within the next couple of years or so.