Rental giant enters market

  • 2001-02-01
  • Aleksei Gunter
TALLINN - Sweden's Cramo AB acquired Estonia's AS Ehitustooriist on Jan.23 and now controls one-third of the local machinery rental services market.

Cramo has subsidiaries in seven countries around the Baltic Sea region and plans to expand into Holland and Russia.

According to Gunnar Glifberg, Cramo's president, plans to enter Latvia and Lithuania are in the works.

"We do not know yet if we'll purchase a company there or will expand from our Estonian base," he said.

Ehitustooriist which deals mostly with construction companies, employs 45 people at three depots in the Tallinn area. It's rental stock contains some 8,000 building and construction machines as well as scaffolding and form equipment. The company's net turnover last year exceeded 53 million kroons ($3.14 million).

"The Estonian equipment rental market is very promising for us," said Glifberg. "There is a rapidly growing need for modern equipment and for greater capacity in all the Baltic states. With Ehitustooriist, we gain a good platform for growing further."

With more than 140 rental depots and sales offices, Cramo rents machinery, equipment and modular facilities to the manufacturing industry, construction companies and the public sector. The acquisition of Ehitustooriist is the first one in the Baltic states. Cramo's net turnover totaled 1.3 billion Swedish kroner ($134 million) in 1999.

Peter Lind, managing director of Ehitustooriist, said, "The management group has gladly accepted to stay on and we are certain that all employees will benefit from the change."