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Arcomet enters London Olympics

While many tower crane companies have taken a beating over the past 10 years, Arcomet of Belgium has survived well thanks to entrepreneurial flair and a pragmatic spread of services – manufacturing, direct rental, rent-to-rent, and trading.

With assorted ventures and partnerships all over the world, the Belgian company’s latest move is to secure the Potain distributorship in the UK. I have long been puzzled why the two giants of tower crane manufacturing, Potain and Liebherr, have persisted with direct sales in the UK for so long. Potain’s two major customers are the contractor Sir Robert McAlpine, with top-slewers, and rental company Ladybird with self-erectors. Arcomet will enable Potain to reach much further and cash in on a market that is set to boom in the run up to the 2012 London Olympics.

In effect, Potain has secured the services of its greatest competitor in the UK self-erector market (or, at least, the greatest competitor of its best customer, Ladybird) since Arcomet owns 50% of the UK’s largest self-erector fleet, Airtek Cranes, in partnership with Airtek Group.

Arcomet now has three vehicles in the UK. Midland Cranes operates a rental fleet of mainly Potain hydraulic self-erectors, and is also the distributor for this product line. Arcomet Tower Cranes Ltd runs a fleet of top-slewing tower cranes. Meanwhile, Airtek will also continue to grow its fleet of self-erectors, which are predominantly Arcomet-made cable-erecting types with telescoping jibs, but also include some larger Potain self-erectors.

Airtek and Midland Cranes will share branding; both fleets will be coloured blue and orange. The top-slewers will have yellow towers and red and white jibs.

In terms of administration and financial control, Airtek remains Arcomet’s first base in the UK. Airtek Cranes (50% owned by Arcomet, remember) owns 49% of both Midland Crane and Arcomet Tower Cranes Ltd, and Arcomet has 51% of each.

Arcomet managing director Dirk Theyskens tells me there are plans for Airtek’s current fleet of 100 units to grow to 150 by 2007. Midland cranes will run a fleet of 100 Potain self erectors by 2008 which will be at the disposal of a sub-dealer network for rental to their local customers. Arcomet Tower Cranes Ltd will set up its own rental fleet of 80 to 100 Potain tower cranes by 2008. In addition, they will also sell new Potain tower cranes to contractors and possibly buy back tower crane fleets from contractors in exchange for a long term exclusive hire agreement.

Theyskens believes that given that the UK’s two largest tower crane rental companies, Select and HTC, are both owned by contractors, there is good potential for a major independent player, allowing other contractors an alternative to hiring from their competitors. Given the success of Doug Genge with Falcon Crane in recent years, I think he might be right.

To support the new UK ventures and others in the Benelux, France, USA and Germany, Arcomet has placed a l30m order for 230 new Potain cranes (100 self-erectors and 130 top-slewers), to be delivered in 2006 and 2007.

It took Arcomet and Potain 18 months to reach a deal over UK distribution, Theyskens reveals. If this works out, I can see Arcomet securing additional territories rather more speedily.

POT cranes

On a side point, I think it is time to clear up the jargon of tower crane types. Increasingly, at least in the UK, self-erectors are referred to as Pedestrian Operated Tower Cranes. Aside from the fact that this is bound to soon transmogrify into the ghastly “POT cranes”, there is a more rational objection. Self-erectors are, indeed, operated by a pedestrian who stands on the ground rather sits in a cab on high, but so are many top-slewing City-class cranes.

It may well be that, for the purposes of operator certification, these two types of cranes should be classed together, since the skills required to operate a cab-less City crane are more similar to those required for a self-erector than for a conventional cab-in-the-sky top slewer. I also accept that POT crane (see, it’s happened already) is a more accurate term than self-erector – as, indeed, is the German term “fast-erector” – because clearly no crane can erect itself without someone at least pushing a button.

However, to my mind, the clearest difference between the two basic genres of tower cranes is not where the operator is positioned. It is whether it comes to site in large pieces that need to be assembled by an assist crane, or whether it can be transported in a single unit, quickly unfolded and set straight to work.