Euro-merger for CF
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• British trailer maker Crane Fruehauf has merged with four other European subsidiaries owned by the American Fruehauf Corporation, to form the largest semi-trailer manufacturing concern in Europe.
The deal brings together Crane Fruehauf in Britain, Fruehauf France, Benalu in France, Ackerman Fruehauf in Germany, and Netam Fruehauf in Holland into a new European conglomerate under a holding copmany — Societe Europeene de Semi-Remorques (SESR) — based in Paris.
The Fruehauf Corporation in the United States will keep a 40% share in SESR, while a consortium of financial institutions will have 45% of SESR's equity. The remaining 15% (worth around 21.4 million) of share capital has been put up by 18 senior directors drawn from SESR's member companies, among them CF's chairman and chief executive Basil Day, and managing director Tom Lynchy.
The merged SESR group will have more than 5,000 employees and a turnover (based on 1987 figures) in excess of 2295 million. It will have manufacturing plants in the UK, France, Germany and Holland, and a combined production capacity of more than 16,000 trailers a year.
The move comes little more than a year after Fruehauf Corporation managers bought out the company for $1.8 billion (21.03 billion).
Crane Fruehauf says the merger will allow further extension of links with its Continental counterparts and make it possible to bring into the UK additional products built by SESR group members.
"We will work a lot closer than we have done in the past to ensure market requirements in the UK are met," a spokesman says.
CF reports that the restructuring "is in recognition of what is rapidly becoming a single European market in terms of regulations, and the lowering of trade and tariff barriers. The constituent members will operate with their own management teams covering design, production and sales within their own market areas — but can also offer their customers the benefits of a Pan-European network of service back-up and design and product expertise. In addition, there are close links with licensees in Spain, Italy, Turkey and Yugoslavia".
According to CF, these strengths will ensure that SESR is well positioned to benefit from the changes which European harmonisation will bring in 1992.